


ABOMINATIONS

by sunsetsundae



Category: Original Work
Genre: Assassination, Bank Robbery, Burglary, Cults, Gangs, Gen, Human Experimentation, Illegal Activities, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:27:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21642193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetsundae/pseuds/sunsetsundae
Summary: Everything clicked into place in that moment. That terrifying moment of clarity when everything started to make sense.That moment was the beginning of the end.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 2





	1. ONE

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is an original work based on a comic I never finished, containing my own characters. This was my NaNoWriMo novel for this year, which I didn't finish on time, but still intend to finish. Enjoy!

The puddle rippled as Quincy broke its surface with his foot. "Ugh," he muttered to himself, shaking off the water and moping in his head about how his right sock was going to be wet for the rest of the day. 

It had rained the night before. Puddles lined the sidewalk and the air was still humid. Quentin snickered next to him, but Quincy didn't even turn his head to look at him. He wiped his forehead, and was thankful that it was humid and that it was logical for him to be sweating. In reality, he was nervous, and he shoved his hands in his pockets to hide the fact that they were shaking. His brother was oblivious to both of his movements. Quentin trailed Quincy down the road, looking up and around at the shops that the two brothers passed as they walked.

"Quincy, are you alright?" came Quentin's voice, starting Quincy out of his reverie.

"Yeah," he choked, swallowing hard. "Yeah. Completely."

"You know we can still cancel and go home," Quentin replied, and even though Quincy wasn't looking at him he could imagine the furrowed brow and slightly turned down mouth that made up his brother's concerned face. He kept his eyes forward.

"No, no, it's fine. We're almost there anyway."

Quentin seemed to take this as a decent answer. "Okay, I trust you," he said, and Quincy felt a shiver run down his spine.

They finally came to what appeared to be a normal alleyway. It was dingy, and more puddles lined the way down in between the two buildings. There were some trash cans, trash bags, and an old tire, but aside from that it was empty. The two boys walked down the length of the alleyway, stopping almost at the end at a door to their left.

"Here we are," Quincy said in a low voice. He gulped as he looked up at the metal door looming in front of him. It was ominous, completely sleek and giving no indication as to what was on the other side. The only discernible feature besides the doorknob was a rectangular cutout that looked like it could move. Quincy raised a nervous and and knocked twice on the door. For a few moments, nothing happened. A few muffled and unintelligible noises came from behind the door. Quincy and Quentin exchanged a glance, but their attention was brought back to the door when the little rectangle slid aside to reveal total darkness. Quincy could barely make out a pair of eyes in the dim light.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" said the eyes behind the door, eerie and in a voice that was almost a growl.

Quincy sighed, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes. "Brett, c'mon, it's us."

The voice behind the door changed tones. "Aww, I was having fun, hehehe!"

The rectangular window slid closed. Brett began to open the door and Quincy lost count of the sounds of locks unlocking after seven. Finally the metal door opened and slammed into the wall next to it with a boom that reverberated through Quincy's teeth. Brett smiled wide, his gaze flitting from Quincy to Quentin and back to Quincy. He held out an arm and in an overly grandiose voice, announced, "Welcome!"

Quincy rolled his eyes again, but out of the corner of his eye he could see Quentin practically glowing with amazement. Sometimes he forgot how easily impressed his brother was.

"Come on," Brett said, sweeping the hand that was outstretched in a motion gesturing the two inside. His hair fell over his eyes and he blew up at it to get it to the side. "This way."

"I must thank you both for coming. This is going to be... very interesting." Brett's voice echoed around the dark building as he led them through a mostly empty room. Quincy wondered to himself what this building once was, and why Brett had what seemed to be total ownership over it. The only source of light was coming from a half-open door that opened with a loud creak when they reached it. Brett stepped aside and let the pair of brothers in first.

Once Quincy's eyes adjusted, he took a look around him. There was a long countertop that stretched the length of the wall opposite of them. On top of it was a smattering of random papers, a few notebooks, pens and pencils, and some candy wrappers. There were two huge monitors on the wall, one of which was turned on and had some sort of lava-lamp looking screensaver, and the other of which was off. The monitor that was off had a gaming console hooked up to it, and a single controller sat neatly under it. The other monitor had a keyboard and a chair in front of it. To the left of the keyboard was a softly glowing red button that made Quincy even more nervous than he already was. His eyes traveled from the back wall to the set up in front of them, which included another chair sitting next to a huge metal table, slightly angled down. It had straps on it that looked somewhat like seatbelts, and a pillow. Next to the table was a cart full of syringes, a breaker, and two very sharp looking knives. It was a lot to take in.

"Cool," Quentin piped up, drawing Quincy's attention to him? "So.... what is all this for?" he asked.

Brett walked around the pair and stood in front of Quentin. Quincy's younger brother stood very tall, almost a head taller than Brett, and yet the smaller boy's presence was so unnerving that Quincy was more scared of him. "I'm glad you asked!" Brett said, extending a hand to pat Quentin's shoulder. "It's all for YOU!"

Quentin looked confused "Me? Wha-"

His sentence was cut off when Brett moved faster than Quentin could react, uppercutting him so hard in the jaw that Quentin jerked to the side and hit the ground with a thud. Quincy couldn't help but wince as his skull made impact with the hard concrete floor. He felt tears well up in his eyes.

"Did you have to knock him out like that?" He whispered.

"Of course I did," Brett scoffed. "He could have easily overpowered both of us if I hadn't. He's like an ox." He beamed and wrapped an arm around Quincy's shoulders. "Don't worry so much, bud! Soon he'll be better than ever! Now come on, help me get him strapped onto the table."

Quincy sat unmoving, watching Quentin sleep as Brett typed away on the keyboard next to him. It felt like hours before Quentin woke up. When he began stirring and making grunting noises, Brett stopped typing and spun his chair around to look at Quentin. "Good morning, sleeping beauty!" He exclaimed, standing up.

Quentin wiggled slightly, struggling against the restraints that kept him securely fastened to the table. "Why am I.... what's going on?"

With a demeanor that made him practically radiate excitement, Brett jumped out of his chair, drawing Quentin's attention to the two of them. "I'm glad you asked! Let me show you!" The young scientist all but shouted, his much-too-big-for him lab coat billowing around his legs as he once again spun around and pulled up a slideshow presentation on his monitor. He turned back to Quentin and held his hands up, his face beaming with pride.

The screen read, in big block letters, BRETT'S COOL EXPERIMENT - BY BRETT GRADY. He reached over to the keyboard to press a button, and the slide changed. It showed a clip art picture of a DNA strand and a little cartoon boar. Brett turned back to Quentin and spoke, "See, what I'm gonna do is alter your DNA, and add some boar DNA to it. It should enhance your strength and give you thicker skin... and stuff." He scratched the back of his head, looking sheepish. "Since you're my first patient, I have no idea what the side effects will be. But that's the exciting part!" Quentin's face went from confused to horrified, while Quincy's went from mildly concerned to confused.

"Uh... why a boar, exactly?" He asked, crossing his arms and glancing curiously at the cute yet unrealistic boar up on the screen.

Brett shrugged, glancing from the screen to Quincy. "Because I could get ahold of a boar more easily than, like, a lion."

"Uh.... what about like... a dog?"

Brett's face lit up and he gave Quincy two thumbs-up. "That's a great idea, lab partner!"

"Lab partner?!"

Quincy's outburst was ignored by the young scientist, who pulled a small notebook out of one of his deep lab coat pockets that had the word IDEAS scribbled on the cover. When he was finished, he slammed the book on the cart full of syringes that was next to the metal table, which caused Quentin to wince and keep a close, frightened eye on Brett. The young boy pulled a syringe off of the cart and flicked it to disperse loose liquid, letting a couple drops fall to the floor. It had a clear liquid in it, and not very much, from what Quincy could tell.

"Now then!" Brett said, his mouth stretching into a smile that did not fit the situation. "Why don't we get started?"

Quentin seemed to finally realize the gravity of the situation he was in. He struggled desperately against his restraints, and Quincy could see sweat shining all over his younger brother's face. "No, stop, please!" Quentin begged, his eyes glassy with tears and filled to the brim with primal fear. "Don't do this to me!"

"It's okay!" Brett assured, having to raise his voice over Quentin's frantic gasps. "Calm down! It'll only hurt for a minute!" His eyes went dark and his smile turned sadistic. "Or ten..." he added, and a barrage of laughter erupted from his chest, his smile stretching ear to ear, his pupils completely dilated and his eyebags accentuated in the harsh light. Quincy wanted to get as far away from here as he could, but he was frozen in place.

"QUINCY!" Came his name, wrenching itself from Quentin's throat. Quincy looked up from his intent stare at his shoes to look at his brother, whose eyes were pleading with him to do something, anything. He couldn't take it, and looked away, murmuring a quiet "I'm sorry" under his breath.

"Quincy... please... why are you doing this to me?"

~

"I need this done quickly. As in, the next few days," The man said in a low voice, facing away from Quincy.

"What do you want me to do... exactly?"

"You have a younger brother, do you not?"

"WHAT?" Quincy shouted, slamming his hands on the table in disbelief. "You can't--"

"I CAN and I WILL. If you want to live, bring him to Brett. If you don't, well, I can't guarantee that either of you will survive. It's simple, boy. Use your brother, and save yourself, or refuse and try to run, and you will both die. Your choice. Now get out."

~

"I'm sorry, Quentin," Quincy told his brother, not able to meet his eyes. He hastily wiped a tear off of his cheek. "I'm just... a coward." He blinked the tears away and looked up once again at Quentin, who now had mysterious wires hooked up to him at random points on his face and body. He wondered to himself how long he had been daydreaming.

Brett's voice came from behind Quincy, "All right, he's all hooked up, so here we go!"

Quincy looked back just in time to see Brett pressing the suspicious button that was on the counter, and a slight binging noise followed. The room was silent for a moment as the screen above Brett's head read DOWNLOADING DNA... 1%. Then, there was a sound not unlike a lightning bolt striking nearby, and electricity crackled to life through the wires that were hooked up to Quincy's younger brother.

The scream that came out of Quentin's mouth would be burned into Quincy's mind for the rest of his life.

He had never heard a scream like that, and he had to cover his ears to keep himself from breaking down. It did nothing to stop the sound from reaching his ears, and Quincy felt like he was going to throw up. Quentin's veins stood out prominently where the wires were hooked up to his skin via little circular pads, and his nose was gushing blood. Quincy squeezed his eyes shut and prayed that it would end soon. He could hear Quentin struggling against the restraints, his movements executed with such strength that the table itself was moving, and hitting the ground again with loud BANG, BANG, BANGs. Quincy could hear Brett's calm voice saying "I think it would be best if you were still. Stop moving, or I'll have to make you."

The banging stopped, but Quentin's groaning and panting did not. Quincy wouldn't open his eyes, he couldn't, until another quiet ding from the computer and Brett announced "Ah, it's done." Whatever had been happening was complete. He finally opened his eyes to see Quentin lying unconscious on the table blood covering his mouth and chin. He looked the exact same with the exception of the massive tusks that were protruding from his slightly opened mouth.

"Oh my god, Brett, he's out cold. And he looks the same, aside from the tusks."

"Hmm," Brett mused, looming over his patient. "Well, I'm sure something other than his teeth changed. It's actually a good thing he's unconscious, I'd like to do some tests on him..." He seemed to have been muttering to himself, but then he looked up at Quincy and spoke louder, "I need to move him. I prepared a room for this, luckily. Help me move him, lab partner."

Quincy's whole body felt cold. "Yeah... okay," he agreed weakly.


	2. TWO

The house was quiet, the only noise filling the living room the soft snoring coming from a tangle of limbs and a mess of scruffy red hair on the couch. Skye was dead asleep, his face squished against the pillow, which sported a decent sized puddle of drool. A younger man appeared at the side of the couch, like a ghost, and nudged his sleeping friend with his knee.

"Hey, Skye," he said. "Get up," he added, raising his voice.

Skye made some unintelligible grunting.

"C'mon man, I made you some coffee," The black-haired boy insisted, showing Skye the two mugs he had in his hands.

"Mmmm, five more minutes," Skye bargained before turning his head around.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," said the other, setting the mugs down and grabbing the TV remote. It was turned to the news, as usual, and the man was talking about a robbery that had happened the night before.

"Good morning, Nevada. We've got quite the story for you today. Last night, West Bank was robbed. Over $350,000 in cash was taken from the vault, and the perpetrators left no trace or clues to their identities or whereabouts.

"The police are still looking for any leads, or anybody who might have witnessed the criminals before or after they entered the bank."

"Hey, lookie there, Max!" Skye announced, suddenly awake. "We're on the news."

"Yeah," Max agreed reluctantly. "I guess we are. Sorta."

"Too bad they'll never find us," Skye said confidently, sitting up and stretching his arms above him.

Max sipped his coffee, enjoying its warmth. "Mmmhmm, hopefully," he said after he swallowed.

Skye heard the sound of soft yet clunky footsteps and turned around to see Kyle emerging from his bedroom, rubbing his eyes and looking like he was still not quite awake.

"Good morning, your highness," the redhead said dramatically, waving at Kyle.

"Shut the fuck up, Skye," Kyle grumbled back, flipping him the bird, although he had a small, amused smile on his face. Skye beamed back.

"Come watch the news," he said, pointing to the TV. "It's all about us."

"Is it now?" Kyle asked. He walked lazily towards the couch, where Skye was sitting comfortably, his legs spread wide. "Move it," Kyle demanded.

"Say please, Kyle! C'mon, didn't your mama teach you manners?"

"I'll sit on you."

Skye slid sideways to make room for Kyle, not wanting to induce his friend's wrath this early in the morning. He laughed awkwardly and kept a wary eye on Kyle as the older boy sat down next to him.

"They don't know it's us, do they?"

"Of course not," Max replied. "They're totally stumped."

"I almost wish they'd come after us," Kyle sighed. "This is so rinse and repeat, it's starting to get boring."

"You WANT them to come after us?" Skye parroted in disbelief.

"It would be more entertaining than sitting around, not even able to really spend a lot of our cut."

"But I'm employed!" Skye said proudly, smirking sideways at Kyle, who did not have a job. "They won't ever think we're suspicious."

"You work part-time at a shitty video game store. That doesn't exactly pay much." Max pointed out.

Skye deflated. "I guess you're right."

Kyle put his hand on Skye's shoulder reassuringly. "I mean, it's not like we can't spend ANY money, we just can't go out and do something stupid, like buy a brand new Lexus in cash."

"Pfft, who'd want a Lexus anyway?" Max asked with a shrug.

"Mmhmm, I'd go for a Lambo, myself."

Kyle sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "That 's not the point, you dumbasses. I just mean we can't fling around cash like a bunch of drug dealers and draw attention to ourselves."

Max chuckled and set his coffee mug down on the table, sitting cross legged on the floor and letting his chin rest in his hand. "We're just messing with you, Kyle. We know what you meant."

"Whatever," Kyle said with a roll of his eyes. He stood up, bored of the conversation, and headed to the kitchen to sate the hunger growing in his stomach. It was a bright morning, and the light from the window easily lit up the kitchen. Kyle made his way over to the refrigerator and opened the freezer door, wondering if there were still any microwavable waffles left or if Skye ate all of them the night before.

A shadow passed over the door of the refrigerator and Kyle turned his head to look out the window. When he did, his heart forgot to work for a few moments, and when it did it went into hyperdrive. He knew that beautiful face anywhere, and he knew, very painfully, that it was not real. He slammed the freezer door shut and marched up to the window, ignoring her pleasant smile and closing the curtains with such force he ripped one of the rings off of the curtain rack. He spun back around and put his back against the wall next to the window, breathing heavily and shaking his head.

Not real, he reminded himself.

His breakfast forgotten, Kyle returned to the living room, eager, for once, to get back to his annoying friends and forget all about what had just occurred. His heart, again, was not prepared for shocks of the sort he was experiencing at the early hour he was experiencing them, and for a moment he was unable to respond before the scene in front of him and only managed to let out a very intelligent sounding "uhh."

Skye had max pinned to the floor, both of them stomach-down. Skye was on all fours, and Max was sprawled out, his legs and arms apart. Both of them were breathing heavily. Max's face was a shade of red akin to that of his favorite jacket, but Skye didn't seem fazed about the position they were in or that the two of them had just been walked in on.

There was an intensely awkward moment of silence before Kyle was able to get his feet to work again, turning in the direction his bedroom was in. "If you guys want some privacy, you can just ask..."

Max's face, somehow, got even redder. Kyle thought he was going to pop like a balloon. "It's not like that! He shouted, his voice too loud in the otherwise quiet room."

"Yeah!" Skye piped in. "He said my hair looks stupid at this length!" I wasn't about to take that lying down!"

"Skye, your hair looks stupid at that length," Kyle deadpanned.

The redhead rolled off of max and curled into a ball, half underneath the coffee table, making whining noises.

"What a crybaby," Kyle said, making sure he was loud enough that Skye could hear him.

"I swear," Max said with a grunt, standing up from the floor and brushing himself off. "If he doesn't get a haircut soon, I'll cut if off myself when he's sleeping."

"That didn't go so well last time," Kyle said, and memories of him being woken up by the sound of an all-out fistfight at two in the morning surfaced in his head. Evidently, Max had tried to cut Skye's hair shorter while he was asleep, and Skye headbutted Max before he was even fully awake or aware of what was going on. It escalated from there, and before too long Kyle had to break up the fight, and purchase a new lamp the next morning.

"Hmph," Max grunted. "You try it then."

Kyle shook his head, pivoting on his foot and heading back into his room. "No interest," he said, shutting the door behind him.

"Jerk," mumbled Max under his breath.

"My life is over!" Skye wailed, now sitting in the corner with his face to the wall.

"Skye, c'mon man, quit moping. Why don't we go out and do something?"

"What's the point?" Skye moaned, tears streaming down his cheeks. He sounded like he was on a bad soap opera. "I can't go out with my hair looking stupid!"

Max groaned. "Dude, quit being a drama queen. Just come over here and I'll braid if for you."

Skye turned his head to look at Max, and then scooted his body around to face him. "Oooh, will you really?" He asked excitedly, his sadness suddenly forgotten.

"Yeah, I guess so," Max said. "Sit on the couch."

"I didn't even know you could braid hair!" Skye exclaimed, standing up and making his way over to the couch to sit down.

"You kinda pick it up when you have multiple older sisters," Max replied.

Kyle couldn't get her face out of his head. He had been doing so well, it had been almost a week, and then he lost control again, he got too comfortable, and whatever part of his fucked up brain was making him keep seeing her everywhere started up again. He was snapped out of his thoughts by a literal snap — and when he opened his mouth the top of his toothbrush clattered into the sink.

"Fuck," he muttered, picking it up and disposing it in the trashcan next to the toilet that was home to a few other busted toothbrushes. "I just bought that one, too."

He splashed some water on his face and then left the bathroom, regretting his earlier decision of not getting breakfast and heading back towards the kitchen to try and find something to eat for the second time. When he walked into the living room he saw Skye and Max fully dressed. Skye's hair was in braids, which Kyle thought but would never admit out loud was a good look for him. Max was scrolling through his phone as Skye was putting on his shoes.

"Hey, Kyle, do you want to come with us?" Max asked, looking up from his phone screen. "We're going to Vegas for a bit to gamble."

"What?" Kyle asked. "Neither of you are twenty-one."

In unison, Skye and Max both held up fake IDs that would probably work if whoever was checking them was drunk. And blind. "You guys are so stupid," he told them flatly.

"Look on the bright side, man," Skye said, standing up and slipping his fake ID back into his wallet. "You'll have the place to yourself for a few hours. You're always griping about how you want some peace and quiet."

"Eh, that's true," Kyle agreed.

"We'll be back before dinner," Max chimed in. "Are you sure you don't want to come with us? You'll increase our chances of getting in since you're actually of age."

"No, I'll stay here and I guess make dinner."

"Kyle's cooking dinner?" Skye exclaimed, like a dog that heard the word scraps. He pumped his fist in the air. "Hell yes! I can't wait!"

"Do you want us to bring anything back on the way home?" Max asked.

"No, I'll just go out and get whatever I need. The store's within walking distance, and I need some exercise anyway."

Skye gave Kyle a thumbs-up and a wide grin, and then shouted, "I'm driving!" directly into Max's ear.

"Like hell you are," Max growled. "Besides, I already have the keys." He held up the keys and jingled them in front of Skye's face.

Skye continued to pout as the two of them left the house, and then it was silent. Kyle watches them pull out of the driveway, and then he sits down on the couch to watch TV. While the news is playing in the background he opens his phone and creates a new Note, then stares at the blank screen for a while trying to decide what he's in the mood to cook. He settles on the simple spaghetti and meatballs, and types out everything he'll need. He thought to himself that he might as well cook dinner while they were out, or else they would come home with an excessive amount of unhealthy food. The only time they ate real food was when he cooked. Sometimes he felt like he was their mom.

About an hour later, Kyle is dressed and ready to leave. He stops once again in the bathroom first and opens the cabinet, moving aside some hand towels and grabbing a small, orange prescription bottle, opening it and taking one of the pills, washing it down with a glass of water next to the sink. He puts the bottle back in its hiding place and took a long look at himself in the mirror. He closed his eyes, took a breath, and then left the house, locking it behind him and heading to the grocery store. Since Skye was the only three of them that had a real job, he had "dibs" on the car, and Max went out with his friends when Skye wasn't using it, which usually meant Kyle was stuck walking everywhere. Luckily there were sidewalks and nothing was too far away.

Within an hour he was back home, setting down the grocery bags on the counter. He then made a beeline for the refrigerator and chugged an entire bottle of water. It was a hot day, and he cursed himself for not bringing a bottle with him, or buying one at the store. He took back everything he said about walking not being that bad.

It was quiet, too quiet, while Kyle was cooking. He turned on music on his phone to fill the silence. It wasn't very often that both Skye and Max were gone; either Skye was at work and Max was home, Max was out with friends and Skye was home, or the three of them were out doing something. The house felt empty without Skye yelling at the TV while watching his game shows, or the sound of Max's guitar coming from his room. Kyle would never tell them, but he did like having them around, especially since he never had any brothers, or other siblings, growing up. Those goons, whether he liked it or not, were his family.

He strained the spaghetti and put it back into the pot so it would stay warm while he waited for them to get back. The sauce and meatballs were ready as well. Kyle looked at the clock on the oven. It was 6:30. "I should have gone with them," he said to himself. "They're probably having a great time."

While he let dinner sit on the stove, he pulled out his phone and texted the group chat with the three of them.

KYLE: Dinner's ready dipshits.

It took a moment for them to respond. The group chat was currently named SERIOUS FUCKY WUCKY, courtesy of Skye. It was almost as if his hobby was coming up with nonsensical names for their group chat.

SKYE: you miss us? :))

KYLE: No.

SKYE: he misses us, max. we should head home. where did you go?

MAX: Where did YOU go? I'm at the same slot machine I was at ten minutes ago when you took off.

SKYE: ohhhh I'm in the bathroom lol

MAX: Dude what the fuck? That's nasty, get off your phone!

SKYE: =P

Kyle rolled his eyes and turned off his phone. He made a bowl of spaghetti for himself and sat down on the couch to watch TV.

Skye and Max were home about thirty minutes later. Max looked tired and deflated but Skye was glowing.

"You wanna see all the money I won? Money I can actually spend because I legally won it gambling?"

"You didn't legally win it, you're twenty."

Skye pulled out a wad of cash and sniffed it dramatically. "I smell jealousy," he purred, fanning himself with what looked to be a few hundred dollars.

"Big deal. What about you Max?" Kyle asked, turning to their solemn black-haired friend.

"I lost $500 and I had to give some dude my favorite watch," he grumbled.

Kyle couldn't help but laugh.

It was almost a good day.

Kyle was scrolling through the news app on his phone, minding his own business, when a notification popped up on his calendar reminding him that it was time to refill his prescription. As if seeing that he only had two pills left earlier in the morning didn't tell him. He dismissed it. It wasn't like he really needed it anyway. Maybe he just wouldn't refill it this month.

"You're not thinking about not getting your antidepressants refilled, are you Kyle?" came a voice from behind him.

He didn't even turn around. He could feel Andi's presence next to him, hear her breathing. Sometimes she was so fucking real.

"Please get them Kyle. You need to take care of yourself. What if you get hurt?"

"Leave me alone," Kyle says, staring at his hands. "You're not even real. You're in my head. The real you is... I don't know. Hopefully somewhere safe, and alive. The only thing hurting me right now is you."

"Oh, my poor Kyle," she sighed, and walked around his bed, caressing his chin with her hand and pulling his head up so her eyes could meet his. "You've got it wrong... the only thing hurting you is yourself."

Suddenly Kyle's door slammed open and all at once Andi was gone, along with her warmth. Kyle looked up to see Skye, eagerly bouncing. "Chopped is on, man, come watch it with us!"

"Is it a new episode or a rerun?" Kyle asked.

"It's new! Get you ass out here!"

He rolled his eyes and smiled. "Yeah, okay," he agreed, getting up and following Skye out of his room.


	3. THREE

Shauna's apartment is comfortable, small. The smell of the smoke from her cigarette is forever in the furniture, her clothes, and Crae's nostrils. Her eyes lazily scanned her cards, and when she sighed a cloud of smoke trailed out of her mouth. Crae thought to himself that she was particularly attractive like this, but he kept thoughts like that to himself, offering instead a chip to the pot.

"Fold," Shauna said slowly, setting her cards down and sliding them across the table.

"Fuck," Crae muttered, flicking his full house down.

Shauna smirked around her cigarette. "Amateur," she said. "You have such obvious tells."

"What tells?" Crae asked, but Shauna just shrugged, taking her cigarette out of her mouth and ashing it on her ashtray.

"Never gonna tell you," she said, standing up and heading over to her fridge, swirling the smoke that hung in the air as she moved. "You want something to eat?"

"I'm good," Crae responded, cleaning up the cards and chips and setting them to the side. He pulled out his phone and scrolled through social media as Shauna cooked something on the stove. He was busy looking through Facebook when his phone started ringing, showing TILER MURPHY (WORK). He answered it with his usual, "Yeah?"

"Crae, did you get my texts?"

"No, I've been playing cards with Shauna. What's up?"

"Oh good, you're with Shauna. I need you guys to do something."

Crae wasn't sure how Pepper was able to obtain addresses via websites and apps where people listed things to be sold, but he did, and Tiler had her eye on a necklace like this not too long ago, and she wasn't going to pass up this chance, even though it was still broad daylight. Her excuse was that if she didn't get it now, the listing would go down. So, the idea was that Shauna would distract the woman who lived there. Thanks to Pepper's other talent that was a mystery to Crae was using various sketchy websites to obtain information about who lived in the houses they were hitting. From him, they knew that the woman who lived here was in her forties, single, and probably had a lot more jewelry.

Crae waited, crouching out of sight on the side of the house. He waited until he heard the doorbell ring, and the woman opened it, and he swung himself up over the fence and started going to work on one of the back windows. With the few tools in his pocket he was able to get it open relatively quickly and slip inside the house, silently closing it back behind him.

When he looked around, he knew that he had gotten into more than he bargained for. Not one, two, or three, but four cats sat perched in various places around the living room, all still aside from their tails flicking, staring at him, waiting for him to move.

"Shit," he murmured, staring at the multiple wildcards before him. If he moved slowly, he hoped, they would leave him alone. He tiptoed to the side, cutting through the dining room. In the background he could hear the woman chattering with Shauna. Picking up the pace, he located the bedroom and started looking through the vanity drawers, looking for the necklace that Tiler had sent them for. While doing so he pocketed any jewelry that looked like it might be worth something.

Finally, there it was. He grabbed it and spun around, ready to get out of the house, but he was suddenly face to face with a black cat standing in the doorway, its green eyes boring into Crae's. It was the only way back out to the hallway, and the window that was still unlocked. He swallowed the lump in his throat.

The door shutting shook Crae out of his stupor. The woman was back in her house.

"Damn," he said under his breath, and took a step towards the door as he shoved the necklace in his pocket. The cat didn't like this movement, and let out a hiss, the hair on its back standing up. Crae shrunk back and tried once more to step forward, getting a more forceful hiss this time, and Crae realized that it wasn't going to work.

"Allllbert?" Called the woman, and even without seeing her Crae could tell she was older by her voice. "Where's my baby boy?"

Her heavy footsteps were heading down the hallway towards the bedroom, where Crae was still standing, frozen. Thinking fast, he turned and bolted into the closet, shutting the shutter doors and squishing himself against the old lady clothes that smelled so strongly of mothballs, Crae thought that he was going to throw up. A silent shadow passed across the slits in the door, and those same green eyes met his through them.

"Go away," Crae whispered. The woman's footsteps got closer, and he tried to stay still. The cat hissed again and scratched at the door a few times before the woman made it into the bedroom and picked him up.

"Albert!" she exclaimed, picking up the cat. "Why are you staring at the closet, boy, what's in there?"

Please don't open the closet, Crae thought.

The cat meowed, and the woman asked him if he was hungry. After another meow she turned and walked out of the room, and Crae let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding in. After a moment or two he finally opened the closet door and stepped out, making sure the coast was clear of cats and old cat ladies. He snuck down the hallway and paid close attention to the sounds of the woman feeding her cats in the kitchen. He snuck into the living room and opening the window hastily, climbing out and turning around. As he slid it shut, the woman emerged in the corner of his view, and for a second they made eye contact.

"Motherfucker," Crae shouted, and he made a break for the fence, pulling himself over and sprinting down the street towards the old black Mustang parked about a block down the road. He heard the sound of a door opening and the woman yelling, although he couldn't understand what she was saying.

The loud slamming of the mustang door and screeching of the tires made Crae feel safe. It was over. They were safe, and hopefully the woman didn't see enough of Crae's face to give police anything to go on. He slumped down in his seat and sighed, pulling out the necklace and setting it on the dashboard. "Got it," he said, and Shauna shot him a niiice.

Tiler was content with her necklace, trying it on and looking at herself on her phone. "This is going to sell for a good chunk of cash," she purred. "Sorry for sending you guys while it's still daylight. Did you have any problems?"

Crae just shook his head.

And just like that, they were back in Shauna's apartment, except now they were laying side by side on her bed, which was the nicest part of the apartment. Before they had met, she slept on the pull out couch in the living room and the bedroom was more like a study. When Crae started staying around more, and they inevitably broke the couch bed, he chipped in to buy her a queen. It was the biggest bed she had ever owned in her life, and when she told him that after thanking him for helping set it up, he responded that "his queen needed a queen," which earned him a slap on the arm.

"Shauna?" he said.

"Hmm?" she responded, turning on her side to look at him. It was about five in the afternoon and her she was beautiful in this light, her almond skin glowing with an orange tint.

"I'm kinda worried about that old lady."

"Why? I told her about my mormon church and kept her occupied long enough for you to get out without being seen. I doubt she'll even notice most of her jewelry is gone," she said, holding up her hand to inspect the two new rings on her finger.

"She saw me."

Shauna sat up. "What?"

"Right at the end. Outside her window. We made eye contact right before I ran off. And I'm pretty sure I heard her open the door and yell something at me."

For a few moments, Shauna was silent, looking somewhere past Crae. "I think you'll be fine," she finally told him. "Like I said, that lady was pretty oblivious. She didn't even realize half of the shit I was telling her was just completely made up. I told her we were having a feast she was invited to at 'the church' this Saturday for Saint Seya. And she fucking bought it."

Crae laughed. "Saint Seya, as in, the anime?"

"Yes, dude, what other Saint Seya is there?"

"Apparently the one the mormons throw a feast for."

Shauna laughed and laid her head on his chest. "I wonder if she'll actually show up at some church wondering where the feast is."

"That would be hilarious."

They settled back into silence and Crae let his worries of getting caught dissipate. Instead his mind was filled with how much money the rings and other pieces of jewelry he managed to snap that Shauna didn't want were going to sell for. He was going to take them to a pawn shop in the morning, and with any luck he would net a couple hundred dollars and have enough money to take Shauna out for the weekend.

A text from his mother caught him off guard, and he opened his phone to look at it.

MOM: Crae i want you home its been a few days. Cant get caroline to go to school because she wants lunch packed before she leaves. Please bring home stuff to make some peanut butter and jelly. Thank u miss u, mom

"Hey, Shauna, I gotta go."

She sat up and looked at him, confused. "Why?"

"My mom wants me home."

Silence fell between them. He didn't need to say anything else, and that was the end of it. Crae didn't really tell Shauna anything about his mom, but the first time he had to ditch her to run home he explained it in such a way that conveyed the importance of him returning. She didn't get it, but she understood, and she didn't say anything as he pulled on his shirt and laced up his shoes. As usual, Shauna walked him to the door and saw him off, but when the door closed behind her it was just him, alone in the parking lot, heading towards his car.

"Mom? I'm home. I have the groceries you wanted me to bring."

The house was quiet. The sun was setting, but none of the lights in the house had been turned on yet. Crae flipped on the kitchen light and set down the bag that contained bread, peanut butter, and grape jelly that he had bought at the store. One of the bulbs was out and the remaining two hummed as they bathed the room in a soft orange light. He could barely make out the form of his mom sleeping on the couch in the living room. He didn't want to wake her so he quietly put together a lunch for his sister. When he was done he turned off the kitchen light and felt his way through the living room past his mom, who was snoring softly. He headed towards his sister's room and knocked on her door.

"Yeah?" came her voice from the other side, and Crae opened the door.

"Hey Caroline," he said.

His younger sister looked up from her book she was reading and smiled, jumping out of bed to run over and hug Crae. "I missed you!" she shouted. "Why do you have to stay gone for so long?"

"I'm sorry, Caroline," Crae said, holding her tight. "I really should be around more often."

She muffled an mmhmm into his chest.

"Are you hungry? Do you want to go get something to eat?"

"Where?"

"You pick."

"I want ice cream!"

"For dinner?"

"Ice cream for dinner!"

About half an hour later they were returning home from the grocery store with two pints of ice cream. They went back to Caroline's room and sat on her bed eating their treats.

"How's school?" He asked her.

"Stupid," Caroline said matter-of-factly. "Sixth grade is so dumb. What am I ever going to do with fractions? Why do I need to learn about them?"

"Because the government decided you need to," Crae said dramatically, pointing his spoon at her. "Are there any boys giving you trouble? You know I'll come beat them up for you."

Carlone smiled and stuck a huge spoonful of her strawberry ice cream into her mouth. "No. Boys like me. They fight over me on the playground."

Crae laughed. "I didn't know you were so popular."

"I'm not popular I'm just pretty," Caroline replied.

"Yes you are."

"And so are you!"

"You think I'm pretty?"

"Yeah! Wait, no, pretty's for girls. You're handsome."

"Well thank you, Caroline."

When they finished their ice cream Crae took the trash to the kitchen to throw it away and put the spoons in the sink. As he was clinking around he heard his mom stir, and she lifted her head to investigate where the noise was coming from.

"Crae?" the word crawled from her throat like a sick beetle, and her voice was like nails on a chalkboard. She had probably passed out right after she sent him that text message. "Didn't think you'd actually come home."

"I had to. Caroline has to have lunch."

"You're always so busy with that girlfriend of yours," his mom continued, refusing to acknowledge that he had even spoken.

"She's not my girlfriend, mom," he said pointlessly.

"Right, she's the girl you spend the night with so you don't have to stay here."

"It's not that. I enjoy her company and she enjoys mine. I come back when you need me to, and I bring groceries. I even pay the electric and water bills. What more do you want from me?"

She sat up and scratched the back of her head. Her hair was a rat's nest, her eyes sporting bags darker than her pupils, which were dilated so far he couldn't even see her irises. It was unclear whether she had been drinking or doing drugs before she fell asleep.

"I want you to act like you're a part of this family. Stay with your mom and sister and don't abandon them," his mom hissed.

"I'm not abandoning you. I bring you food, I give you money, and I'm here right now, mom. I'm not doing anything wrong."

His mom just waved her hand and laid back down, mumbling "go to your room" but without any real conviction behind it.

Crae took a breath and reminded himself of the situation she was in. It wasn't really her fault that she was acting this way. The best he could do was keep working for Tiler and making the money to keep their house out of foreclosure. He turned off the kitchen light once more and walked back to his room, which was the same as how he left it a couple days before. He took off his sweater and pants and got into bed. The sheets were cold around him, and he let out a deep sigh as he closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep.


	4. FOUR

It was cold and dark, and Quentin was scared.

He didn't gain consciousness properly until the bright headlights and the sound of a car horn forced him awake and led to him on the concrete with a scraped knee. The car sped away and he looked around. There was light rainfall, and he didn't know where he was. How far had he even walked? What happened?

His memories were faded, blurry. He remembered being knocked out, Brett and Quincy talking, and pain. A lot of pain. He shook his head, trying to knock something back into place, and when he moved his hand to scratch his neck he heard clinking. His left wrist had a metal cuff around it, a couple chainlinks hanging off of it. "What the hell?" he said out loud, scared and confused. He felt something weird in his mouth when he spoke, and when he lifted up his hand to investigate he could feel the two smooth, long tusks jutting out from his lower jaw. One of them had the tip broken off. Quentin had no idea what was going on.

When he stood, his legs wobbled, and his eyesight blurred and shifted back into focus. He didn't have his phone. He didn't even know who to contact. Even though he wasn't clear on the details, he knew that his brother had done something bad to him, had gotten him into that situation. And Brett. Quentin felt a pang of white-hot rage in his gut when he thought of the young scientist. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew it was his doing, and he was angry at him.

He knew he had to start moving. 

His calves burned. It felt like his left shoulder was dislocated. His entire body felt like it was pulsing, but still Quentin continued on, not really sure where he was going but just moving in one direction. He had no idea where he was, and with the massive tusks coming out of his teeth he didn't want to ask someone for directions. He reached up to wipe his face and when he took his hand away it was covered in dark red blood. He didn't feel pain from any of the wounds on his body but as he looked at his arms he could see he had more. Bruises lined his arms and he had some cuts here and there. When he tried to think back to what caused them, his mind was still blank.

Finally he reached a gas station and snuck in the bathroom without making eye contact with the cashier. He looked at himself in the mirror in disbelief. His left eye was purple, puffy, and swollen. There was a deep cut above it that was oozing blood slowly. There was dried blood by his nose and mouth, and just as he thought, his right tusk had its top cracked off. When he touched the jagged top of it, the pain was so bad he cringed and grabbed the side of the sink to steady himself. Quentin shook his head to try and clear his thoughts. He turned on the sink and washed the blood off of his face, making sure to take care around his swollen black eye. When he got all of it off and rinsed his arms and hands, he dried off with a flimsy paper towel, the only one left in the dispenser. At least there was one, he thought to himself.

The wound on his forehead was trying to start bleeding again. He needed a bandage for it. In the back of his head he knew that he had no money, but he checked all of his pockets anyways, finding only a few loose coins. He sighed, pressing his damp paper towel against the forehead wound for a moment. Steeling himself, he turned and left the bathroom.

Trying to look invisible and inconspicuous, Quentin pretended to shop for a few moments while slowly making his way toward the band-aids. He risked a glance at the cashier, and he looked like he was preoccupied with his phone. Quentin didn't have a coat on or anything that he could easily hide something bulky, so he grabbed a package of bandages off the shelf, coughing as he opened it to hide the sound, and slipped a few of them into his pocket, closing the box up as well as he could and putting it back. He meandered around the store a little bit more, feeling paranoid, and he finally walked out as normally as he could manage. When he got a couple blocks away he finally let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding, wiping his forehead to get rid of the newly leaking blood, and put on a band-aid by guessing where the cut was. He hoped it would stop it from bleeding, but he knew that he looked completely stupid and suspicious, so he started trying to think again about where the hell he was going to go. The one thing he knew was that he couldn't go home; Quincy was definitely an enemy at this point. Some of his memories were coming back to him in feverish flashes -- a syringe, and echoing, haunting laugh, electric crackling inside his skull, and then nothing. It was like his memory had been wiped. He had no idea how he got so many bruises, or a cuff and chains around his wrist. He thought about going to the police, but he probably wouldn't be taken seriously. His story sounded like something a crackhead would make up.

He decided that his best bet was to go to the police, no matter how crazy he would sound. It was either that or sleep under a bridge, and that didn't sound appealing to him. The rain was starting to pick up, and Quentin was cold, his shirt fully soaked through. He crossed his arms across his chest, shivering. Cars zoomed by, and not a single person stopped to talk to him, offered him a ride, or ask if he was okay. This city was an unforgiving one.

A bell jingled quietly as Quentin opened the door to the police station. He wrung his hands together nervously as he walked up to the reception desk. The woman there was on the phone, and held up her pointer finger to tell Quentin wait a minute. He stood at the desk looking around and wringing his hands for a solid five minutes, listening to the woman saying "mmhmm. Mmhmm. Yes. No." Eventually she said "Alright, bye bye," and hung up the phone. When she finally looked at Quentin, she gave him a once-over, her eyebrows knitting together in concern and confusion. "You good, sweetie?" She asked, incredulous.

"Um, I think I need some help," Quentin mumbled, and he could feel the cut on his forehead trickling, not fully covered by the band-aid.

He could tell they didn't believe him. His story was vague, hurried, whispered, and Quentin couldn't stop shaking the whole time. "I'm not on drugs," he assured the officer he was talking to.

The man was a sheriff's deputy. His office was small, cozy, covered in pictures of his family. He sat back in his chair in a relaxed stance, his arms folded behind his head, his eyes focused on Quentin, his notepad forgotten on the desk. Quentin wasn't sure exactly when the officer had stopped taking notes, but it scared him, because that meant he wasn't being taken seriously anymore.

When he finally stopped talking, the room was silent for a moment. Quentin's hearing was so acute he could hear the watch on the officer's wrist ticking, his heart beating. Was that one of the side effects, like his tusks? The officer kept looking from his eyes to the weird cuff on his wrist.

"So you don't remember anything past that? Like why you have that on your wrist?"

Quentin shook his head, and the officer sighed, sitting forward and scribbling something in his notebook. "Son, pardon my asking but this will greatly help me. Do you have a history of mental illness?"

No sense in lying, Quentin thought. "Uh, yes sir, I have mild Asperger's."

The officer's eyebrows raised, and he scribbled something else on the paper. "I don't think that mixes well with whatever you took, son."

"I didn't take any drugs. At least I don't think so. I don't know what was in that syringe."

For a moment, the officer looked like he was going to say something, but thought better of it. He looked pointedly at both of Quentin's arms and then back up to his eyes. "All right. I think the best course of action is to take you in for the night. I've deemed you a danger to yourself and possibly those around you. We can talk more about this with a specialist tomorrow."

"What?" Quentin said, his voice rising. "Are you arresting me?"

"No, son, we're just going to place you in a cell for the night. That way you don't hurt anyone."

"I'm not going to hurt anyone!" Quentin said, his voice getting a little louder.

"You need to calm down," the officer said, standing and reaching over the table to grab Quentin's wrist.

"No!" Quentin shouted. "You can't keep me here!"

He turned and made a break for the door, the officer following after him. He was almost past the receptionist and out the front door when he felt a hand on his arm, ripping his shoulder that already hurt more out of place. With a scream of pain, Quentin yanked his arm to the side.

The next few events were a blur. Suddenly there was no pressure on his wrist anymore, and when he heard a loud thud, Quentin opened his eyes to see the officer sliding down the wall behind the desk, head first onto the ground next to the computers. There were cracks where his body had hit. He was unconscious. The receptionist's mouth hung open. Quentin felt like he was about to pass out.

The receptionist started shouting something, and he heard footsteps coming towards him, heavy boots on carpet, the jangling of handcuffs. Quentin turned, heading out the door, and running as fast as his legs and worn down body would let him. The rain was really coming down now, hitting Quentin in the face, hard and cold and in his eyes. There were sirens behind him, and the flashing of red and blue lit up the concrete.

He was nearing the outskirts of town, and he reached a wooded strip near a huge department store, running into the branches without slowing down. Behind him came the screeching of tires as the police cars braked, and Quentin didn't stop. His breath was heavy, heaving, his chest burning and his legs starting to ache. He reached an area at which he couldn't see the police car's lights anymore, and as he slowed down he tripped over a root and tumbled over a bank into a creek bed, hitting the dirt face-first.

"Blegh," Quentin retched, spitting to get the sand off of his tongue. The creek he had fallen into was only a couple feet deep, but it would have to do for now. He shimmied over to the edge, where there was slight overhead cover, his body throbbing all over. His ankle felt twisted, his shoulder screamed in pain, his eye was almost completely swollen shut now, and his band aid had come off during his sprint through the woods. Blood dripped into his swollen eye. Quentin brought his knees up to his chest and laid his chin on his folded arms, wishing he was home and everything was normal and okay. He hoped that this was all a dream and he would wake up, scared, but relieved because it wasn't real. He was trying to keep himself quiet so he couldn't be found, listening for footsteps but only hearing rain, staring up at the grey sky through the trees above the creek.

When he was certain that they hadn't followed him this far, Quentin began to cry quietly.


	5. FIVE

Kyle knew he was dreaming. It was just like when Andi would talk to him when he was alone, he knew it was all in his head, but it felt so real. The ponytail that fell down his back was matted, thick, and obviously brown. Kyle's hair hadn't been brown since he was in high school. He finally looked from his hands and hair to the surface in front of him, which focused into view as a desk. There was a piece of paper on his desk, the words TRIG TEST 4 jeering up at him from the top of the paper. An unsharpened pencil sat next to the paper. Everyone else around him was crouched over their desks, scribbling on their papers and typing numbers into their calculators. Kyle felt sweat beading on his forehead. He couldn't be back here. He didn't study for this test.

He raised his hand and the teacher lowered her glasses to the bridge of her nose. "Yes, Mr. Morris?" She asked, not even bothering to hide the fact that she was annoyed by the intrusion.

"Can I go to the bathroom?" Kyle asked, feeling small.

The old hag of a teacher rose from her chair and walked over to his desk, looming over him and placing one gnarled hand on his desk to grab his paper and pick it up. "You haven't even written down a single thing," she cawed, drawing the attention of several students in the class. "What have you been doing these past fifteen minutes, Mr. Morris? Daydreaming?"

She seemed to be getting taller, craning her neck and staring down her nose at Kyle with piercing black eyes. Kyle was really sweating now, and he could feel the burning sensation of a whole class set of eyes on him. "Can I go to the bathroom?" He repeated in an unsure voice.

The teacher shrunk back, taking his test with her. "Go ahead. I'll just keep this for you while you're gone," she hissed, making her way back to her desk. As soon as his beeline to the door was clear, Kyle jumped up out of his desk and ran out into the hallway. Sweat was pouring down his face and he took several deep breaths as he looked to the left and right down hallways that seemed to warp and go on forever.

"Okay, Kyle, get it together," he told himself, trying to remember the layout of his old school and setting off in the direction he hoped the bathroom was. "This is definitely a dream. Do you remember falling asleep? No, that's stupid, nobody can remember falling asleep." He pinched himself hard on the arm and hissed through his teeth at the pain but nothing changed. The lockers around him seemed to briefly shiver. This wasn't even his high school. The teacher whose lair he had just escaped wasn't even a real teacher. This wasn't his high school, it was a thinly veiled hell. "What the fuck," he said to himself. "What the FUCK!"

"Kyle?"

Not now. Not fucking now.

Kyle didn't even turn to look in the direction the all-too-familiar voice was calling to him from, he just started running. But this body was not his, it was not toned and athletic because Kyle was lazy in high school, and his lungs screamed for air and his jelly legs couldn't run fast enough. The hallways twisted, shrunk, grew, and pulsed around him, and Kyle felt like he was going to throw up. He was barely moving when a hand grabbed his arm and yanked him around.

Trapped, tired, and unable to move, Kyle met eyes with Andi. But it wasn't really Andi. It was Andi from high school, the Andi who only had one set of eyes and who had unnecessarily long, wavy brown hair and supple skin that wasn't blue and holy fuck, Kyle thought he was going to die, he spent so much time not looking at her when she appeared to him, and it had been years since he had seen her like this, and her beauty was astounding, and overwhelming. "Fuck," he whispered.

Andi's face seemed to move delayed compared to her voice. "You can't be here," she said, her voice flat, missing its usual airiness.

"I know," Kyle said. "I'm stuck."

There were tears in her eyes and Kyle wasn't sure what to do. He was frozen, even when Dream Andi grabbed his face and their mouths collided. When he finally gained control and kissed her back he tangled his fingers in her long brown hair. This was all wrong, said the voice in the back of his head. You never kissed Andi in high school. She didn't even know you liked her. But he ignored the voice and let it happen, let himself enjoy those familiar lips against his, and neither of them acknowledged the obvious flow of tears that traveled down Kyle's cheeks and soiled the fronts of his and Andi's shirts. When he finally gained some sense back he pushed her away and stumbled backwards, his head spinning. Andi stood still, looking somewhere behind Kyle.

"I love you," Kyle said, reaching towards Andi to embrace her. "Please come home."

Andi took a few steps back, avoiding Kyle's outstretched arms. "You can't be here," she said again, crying almost as much as Kyle was.

"Come home," Kyle shouted, anger mixing with sadness in his stomach.

"I can't let him find me," Andi said, shaking her head, not making eye contact with Kyle.

"I'll protect you. We can leave, start over," Kyle begged, but he still knew this was a dream, and this still was not Andi that he was talking to. "I love you," he tried again, wiping his cheeks.

"I have to go, Kyle," Andi said. Kyle tried one more time to reach out and grab her but she was gone, vanishing right before his eyes, and he collapsed on the floor of the hallway. He raised a hand and smashed it on the tile, a guttural scream echoing from his throat all the way down the twisted hallways. He sobbed violently and stood up, punching the wall of lockers next to him. The pain wasn't enough to wake him up so he did it again and again, until red coated the white panels in front of him and his white knuckle bones were visible through a mess of blood on his skin.

"Wake up!" He screamed, and he reared his head back, throwing it towards the lockers with all the speed he could muster with the non-existent physics that were affecting him in this High School Hell, squeezing his eyes shut. But there was no impact, only cold air and dark behind his eyelids and when Kyle opened his eyes he was back in his room, drenched in a cold sweat, his fists clamped tightly at his sides. Trying to steady his breath, he glanced sidelong and the clock, reading 3:37 in bright red numbers.

"Motherfucker," he grumbled to himself, wiping the very real tears of his face before turning on the lamp and inspecting his hands for any signs of blood or split knuckles. The only thing there were the scars from when he actually did split his knuckles on things in the past, but when he ran his fingers over them, he could still feel a dull throbbing deep in his bones. He didn't want to go back to sleep, but it was too early for him to get up and do anything. He resorted to pulling his legs up close to him and sitting on his bed with the lamp on, staring at a nonspecific spot on the wall as he tried to process the nightmare he had just suffered through. Andi seemed to get realer and realer each time she appeared to him, whether in a dream or in the waking world, and Kyle was starting to lose his mind.

When he decided he was tired of thinking about it, he got up and dropped down to the floor, starting a set of push-ups, sit-ups, and lunges. He had been doing this for a while, starting to work up a sweat, when he heard clattering coming from the kitchen, like someone dropped a bowl into the sink carelessly. Definitely Skye. He looked over at the clock, which now read 4:25 AM. He decided to investigate, opening the door to his room to peek across the open living room into the kitchen. He could see Skye milling around, only the light above the sink turned on, not offering much visibility in the dim kitchen. His hair was a mess, he had obviously taken it out of the braids and slept with it down because it was sticking out in all directions. The TV in the living room was on, casting a low glow on the couch.

Kyle decided to investigate, and he walked out of his room, through the living room, and into the kitchen, where Skye was now rinsing his bowl. He startled when he turned and saw Kyle standing only a few feet from him.

"Christ," he whisper-screamed, setting the bowl down and pulling his robe tighter around himself. Skye usually slept either naked or in underwear, so the fact that he was wearing a robe and unconsciously making sure it was closed told Kyle that he was definitely naked underneath it. It almost made Kyle laugh.

"What are you doing?" He asked instead.

"Oh, I was just cleaning out my bowl. I had some ice cream."

"Ah. Okay."

"What are you doing up?" Skye asked, putting his hands in his robe pockets.

"I was just doing a few sets of push ups," Kyle said lamely.

"Why? It's like four in the morning."

"I had a nightmare," Kyle admitted, looking away from Skye and focusing instead on his neglected bowl in the sink, now full of water.

Skye's face softened. The three of them were close, but they didn't talk about things like this, almost ever. Kyle had no idea Skye was kicked out of his parents' house until just recently, and Max was still an enigma to him. Neither of them knew that Kyle was on antidepressants, or that he had hallucinations of Andi. But they did know about his nightmares, and they did know that he took Andi's disappearance pretty hard. The redhead put a hand on Kyle's shoulder but didn't say anything, offering silent comfort instead. It was not very often that Skye was quiet, and Kyle appreciated that he was, instead of trying to say something sappy and make Kyle feel pitiful and sad.

"Have you even gone to bed yet?" Kyle asked, trying to change the subject.

Skye's hand fell from his shoulder. "Yeah, for a little. I woke up at like, two, and I couldn't fall back asleep so now I'm binge-watching New Girl and I also got some ice cream, so," he said, trailing off with a small smile. "You're welcome to come watch with me. I can catch you up."

Kyle appreciated the offer, he really did, but he wasn't in the mood for watching some stupid show while Skye cackled next to him. He declined, grabbed a water bottle out of the fridge, and made his way back to his room. When he turned around and closed the door, he could see Skye standing where he had been in the kitchen, watching Kyle with an unreadable expression, his face bathed in the soft light from the TV. Kyle looked away and sat down in bed, leaving the door open just a crack. Eventually he could hear Skye make his way back to the couch, and then cracked open the water bottle and took a sip. He stared at the wall again until he finished it and laid back down in bed, turning his lamp off but not making an active effort to sleep.

It was probably a good idea to refill his antidepressants. Or maybe go to a therapist. As soon as he had that thought, he cringed to himself. Kyle had never liked therapy. He didn't think it did that much good. But he was able to admit that seeing hallucinations of his missing girlfriend were not normal. The fact that he could touch her most times as well made it worse in his mind. There was probably something seriously wrong with him.

Kyle didn't even dream when he finally fell back asleep. It was like he blinked and the sun had come out. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, checking around his room to make sure that Andi wasn't there. He took a deep breath and pulled his phone off of the charger, booting it up. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he scrolled through Facebook. Kyle wasn't one for social media. He never posted anything on his profiles, but rather used them to keep up with things he was interested in. Out of habit, he looked at Andi's profiles on Facebook and Instagram as well. Neither of them had been active since she had disappeared, as usual. He checked at least once every couple days. Maybe she would come back. He had tried texting and calling her a few times every now and then but after a while her number wouldn't even dial anymore, a chirpy female voice taunting him by telling him the number you have dialed is not in service at this time. It had been a while since he had deleted his text conversation with her. It hurt to much to read back into.

There was always the thought in the back of his mind that she left because of him. Even though they were happy together, or at least to Kyle they were, he had the notion that she didn't love him anymore and felt like she had to get out. For the first few days he thought that she had been kidnapped, but the fact that a suitcase, clothes, and her car was missing seemed to prove otherwise, and Kyle wasn't sure who would have kidnapped her with the exception of their boss, who had screamed at Kyle for what felt like hours trying to get Kyle to tell him "where he was hiding his girlfriend" and "why she would leave when he needed her so much". To this day, Kyle felt like that man still didn't quite trust him like he used to.

The longer he went without seeing her, hearing from her, the crazier Kyle felt. He had no idea where she was, what she was doing, or if she was okay. He just wished she would text him, or call him, or something. Anything to let him know that she was still okay. It had only been a few months but Kyle felt like he was going to get an ulcer with how stressed out he was about this. Of course, Skye and Max didn't know how bad it was getting, but they missed her as well. It was almost like the other two boys tiptoed around Kyle ever since Andi went missing. He didn't like it. He just wanted her back. He wanted everything back to normal.

His thoughts were interrupted by a text.

**Boss: I have a target for you boys.**


	6. SIX

Caroline was at school, Crae having returned from walking her there about a half hour before, and their mom was sitting on the couch that she seemed to be attached surgically to and drinking a large bottle of wine. Crae remembered when before had moved out how his mom actually poured herself glasses. He wasn't sure when she had ditched that habit and decided to drink her wine or liquor straight from the bottle it came in. He wondered if it had anything to do with him moving out, but based on the way she treated him when he did visit home, he doubted it.

While his mom drowned herself in cheap wine, Crae hung out out of sight behind her, leaning against the wall of the hallway and watching TV. It was usually set to one of his mom's cooking or reality shows that she barely paid attention to, but this morning it was on the news, and Crae was actually interested in watching.

It was the usual type thing; weather, stories about happenings around the county and with the government. He was about to leave and go find something else to occupy his time until Caroline got home when the story on the news changed and the man started talking about a "dangerous individual" who should be avoided at all costs. Squinting over his classes to read the paper in front of him, the news anchor told the story of a young man whose name or age they had no idea. He told the story of this individual showing up to a police station a couple towns over from Crae, and when he thought about it the town was actually in Nevada, not California where he lived. The young man had been talking crazy, saying he had bad things happen to him, and being clearly on drugs. The news anchor cut to a clip of a police officer talking. He had a bandage around his head and his arm was in a sling.

"I never got his name," he was saying into the microphone. "But he told me this insane story of his brother and some unknown scientist or something strappin' him to a table and pumping him full of some drug or something. Then, get this, I told him we were gonna hold him at the jail for the night so we could get a specialist up there to talk to him -- since this dude was either off his rocker or on something strong --" he said, looking at the camera for a moment "--and he ran! I tried to grab him and I got ahold of his arm, and then he THREW ME into the wall!" The man shouted, waving his good arm around for emphasis. "He broke my arm, dislocated my shoulder, and gave me a concussion!"

"He sounds extremely dangerous," the unseen news reporter chimes in.

"Definitely," The officer agreed.

The news broadcast cut back to the anchor, who was now accompanied by a picture of the mystery man. The picture was blurry, taken from someone running after him, but Crae could make out a mop of black hair, a tattered yellow shirt, and since his head was turned slightly to look at his pursuers, Crae could see what looked like a giant tooth protruding from his lower jaw, like a tusk of some sort. He wasn't really sure what that was about.

"--could be anywhere from eastern Nevada to California. He should be treated as dangerous, and if you see this individual or have any clue to his whereabouts, dial 911 immediately. Next up, a heartwarming story about a woman who opened a gluten-free bakery to help raise awareness for people with Celiac Disease like her son."

Crae shook his head, turning and walking back towards his room while simultaneously turning on his phone and looking for other information about this dangerous tooth man. There were a couple articles speculating about what he was and where his "superhuman strength" came from. Crae found himself reading an Onion article calling him "Walrusman," claiming he was bitten by a walrus and now has tusks and super-strength. It was mildly entertaining.

Soon it was time for Caroline to get out of school. Crae walked there, enjoying the mild weather. He waited for his sister and when she came bounding down the steps he smiled and waved, prompting her to run over to him and jump up to hug him, nearly bowling him over.

"You're almost too big to be doing that!" He protested, setting her down on the ground.

"Yeah, but not yet," she argued.

"Sure, sure. Where do you want to go eat?"

Crae should have known she would want to eat at McDonald's. His sister was as picky as he was. She knew what she liked and she didn't want to branch out, and one of her favorite foods were chicken McNuggets. She watched in silent wonder as Crae ordered his meal -- just a normal cheeseburger -- and pull out a fairly decent sized wad of cash to pay. He peeled a ten out of the stack and gave it to the cashier before folding it all back up and putting it back into his pocket, remaining as casual as he could throughout the whole encounter despite the fact that he could feel his sister's eyes on him, and his money, the whole time.

She brought it up about halfway through their meal. "Why do you have so much cash?" She asked, her gaze fixed on a chicken nugget as she dunked it in ketchup.

"From my job," Crae said vaguely around a fry.

"What do you do?" Caroline asked.

Crae had never really thought about what he would tell his sister what he did when she got old enough and curious enough to wonder. Now, here they were, in the corner booth at a McDonald's, and that exact problem was presenting itself. I mean, what was he supposed to say? He couldn't tell her the truth, after all, what if she offhandedly mentioned it to someone that could get him in huge trouble? But try as he might he couldn't think of a profession that would allow him to have as much cash besides male stripper or drug dealer, both of which were not good things to tell your little sister you did. Eventually the silence stretched too long and she started guessing.

"Are you a stripper?" she asked, and Crae laughed into his cup of sprite. When he still didn't say anything, she said "fine, I guess your silence means I don't need to know."

"Maybe one day," Crae finally told her, thankful that she wasn't pushing too much and hoping she didn't go back and tell their mom that he was a stripper.

His phone pinged in his pocket and he pulled it out.

Shauna: When are you coming back over?

Crae was used to texts like this by now. In the beginning, when they were just friends, Crae would visit Shauna at her apartment every now and then and the two would just hang out and talk or play board games, using each other to escape their shitty happenings in their lives. Eventually they started drinking together, and the closer they became, the more time Crae spent at Shauna's apartment, cleaning up the place when Shauna was working the job she hated, which she had to pay the bills when the work for the gang was scarce, having a screwdriver ready for her when she got home. Crae remembered when he had been at her apartment for about a week straight, the longest he had ever spent there, and the two were completely wasted by 10 PM. When Crae woke up in the morning, he had only flashes of memories from the night before, and he was, along with Shana who was snuggled into him, naked in her bed, even though he had always taken the couch before.

Thus was the beginning of their confusing yet casual relationship.

Crae: I'm treating my baby sister to a late lunch right now. I'll come by after.

Shauna: :*

Crae turned his phone off and turned his attention back to his fries. His phone buzzed again, and he sighed, pulling it out to check it as Caroline got up to go get a refill.

Mom: Where is Caroline?

Crae: We're at McDonald's. I'll bring her home soon.

Mom: come home now. Did not approve of this. She doesn't need all that shit in her body.

Crae: It's better than all of the nothing that you're feeding her. We'll be home soon.

His mom didn't respond, and he put his phone away just as his sister sat back down at the table. "Try this," she said, holding her drink out to Crae.

He leaned forward and took a sip of the drink, which had a weird, fruity flavor with undertones of vanilla and something sour. "What is this?" He asked her, scrunching his nose.

"Every drink at the fountain mixed together. Except for water, of course," Caroline told him matter-of-factly.

"Oh, you mean a suicide?" Crae asked.

"Is that what it's called? I always called it the Caroline Special."

"That's a much better name for it, you're a genius," Crae said, and Caroline beamed, sipping her nasty concoction.

Whenever they were done, Crae told Caroline that it was time to head home, even though she protested and asked if they could go to the arcade, or the park, or the mall, and when Crae said no to all of those she went silent for a few moments and asked if they could go to the movies, or a mini golf course, or the mall but not buy anything just look. Crae told her that they really had to go home, that Mom wanted her home.

"I hate mom," Caroline protested. "I want to go do something else!"

"Don't say you hate mom. She loves you. I know she doesn't always act like it but she does."

Caroline didn't say anything for a few more moments. "Are you going back to your girlfriend's house after you drop me off?" She asked quietly.

Crae didn't even try to have the "not my girlfriend" argument with Caroline because he didn't want to try to explain. "Yeah, probably," he said.

Caroline sped up her walking and stopped right in front of Crae, craning her neck to look up at him. "Please don't," she whined, her eyes sad. "I like it when you're here. You actually talk to me and walk me to school and get me food!" Her voice was rising in volume and she stomped on the ground.

Crae crouched down to meet her height and rubbed her arm. "Hey, how about this. We can go to the grocery store before we head home and get some food to make you some meals for the next week. And then I'll come home after that and we can get some more stuff. You wanna learn how to cook?"

Caroline was still pouting, but Crae could tell that she liked the idea. "I get to choose the foods?" she asked.

"Sure. Some of them. But not too much junk food."

"Okay, deal."

Crae didn't even bother to text his mom and tell her that the two of them were heading to the grocery store. She probably wouldn't even be conscious by the time they got home, so he didn't feel the need.

Caroline was excited as she bounced around the store, pointing out foods and ingredients that she wanted. The majority of their basket ended up being frozen dinners, a couple pizzas (Caroline couldn't choose between pepperoni and hawaiian), and some ice cream. Crae made sure to grab some fruits and vegetables as well so he could cook at least one or two healthy meals. He pulled out his same wad of cash at the cash register and was aware that his sister was once again staring at it.

When they got home, their mom was asleep, just as Crae thought would be the case. He held up a finger against his lips to Caroline to tell her to be quiet. They unloaded groceries as the sun set outside the kitchen window. Crae cooked some vegetables while Caroline trotted back to her room. When he was done he put them in a container in the refrigerator and looked to make sure everything was in the right place and that it would last her at least a week. He pulled out the jelly from the fridge and took the peanut butter and bread from the pantry, throwing together a few sandwiches and setting them gently in paper bags he found along with an apple and some small bags of chips that Crae grabbed last minute at the checkout. Once he had made enough for the rest of her school week he pulled a sharpie out of one of the drawers and wrote Wednesday through Friday on them. He sighed and put everything away, pulling out his phone and sending a quick text to Shauna.

Crae: about to leave my house.

Shauna: okay, see u soon.

He walked past his snoring mother and knocked softly on Caroline's door. She opened it and her face was sad. "Are you leaving?" She asked quietly.

Crae nodded. "I'll be back before Monday. I made you lunches for the rest of the week. You know how to cook all the frozen dinners, and there's plenty of fruit and other stuff you can grab for breakfast."

Caroline didn't say anything, she just made a small "hmph" of acknowledgment, her hand falling from the doorknob. She wouldn't look Crae in the eyes.

"Hey, Caroline, I love you, okay? I promise it's better for all of us that I'm not in the house fighting with Mom all the time."

"Mmhmm," Caroline mumbled. She stepped forward and hugged Crae around his waist. He hugged her back and stroked the top of her hair comfortingly.

"I'll be back before you know it, okay?"

"Okay."

There was a part of Crae that felt bad for leaving his sister for so long. It was truly better, though, that he was gone. After his dad died his mom was on a downward spiral, and when she was angry, which the liquor assured was often, she took it out on Crae.

When he arrived at Shauna's he went straight to the freezer and dug out the vodka. He heard her stirring from her bedroom and when she walked into the kitchen she was wearing one of Crae's shirts. She didn't say anything when she saw him pouring the clear alcohol into a shot glass and downing it without a second thought, then going to pour another. After the second glass she walked forward and wrapped her hands around Crae's waist. "I'm sorry, Crae," she said.

Crae was grateful for her. She kept him sane, gave him an escape from his mother, and she never pried, just offered a supportive shoulder. He set down the vodka and the shotglass and turned around, forcing Shauna to loosen her arms. He wrapped his arms around her and she tightened her grip again and they just stood there for a moment. "I don't think I'm a very good brother," he whispered into her soft hair.

Shauna didn't say anything. What would she even say? She didn't know anything about Crae's homelife, just that he had a mom and a sister and his dad was no longer in the picture. Instead of using words she just tightened her grip and traced small circles into Crae's back with her hand. "I'm sorry, baby," she responded.

Maybe if they stood like this for long enough Crae would stop feeling bad.


	7. SEVEN

The silence was deafening. Quincy's ears rang and the only thing he could hear above the noise was the crackling and sizzling of live wires that had been ripped out of various places on the wall by the computers. Brett was laying face-down a few feet from him. Struggling to get his arms under his body to lift himself up, Quincy made his way over to Brett and turned him over. He was unconscious, and blood lined his mouth. He looked like he was missing a few teeth. Even after shaking him, Quincy couldn't get the young scientist to come to.

"Brett?" Quincy pleaded, shaking the boy's shoulder. Brett's head lolled to the side in response.

Quincy grunted and tried to pull himself up, wiping off the back of his arm above his left elbow to dislodge what felt like little pieces of glass in his skin. The quiet clinking noises as they hit the ground confirmed his suspicions and his vision swam as the blood rushed around his body away from his head. He had to force himself not to look at his hand when he felt it come away from his arm wet and sticky. Seeing his own blood made Quincy extremely nauseous.

He wasn't quite sure what he was looking for. Despite having been to Brett's lab a few times, he still didn't know where everything was. Multiple rolling shelves that were full of syringes and beakers full of random substances had toppled over, and all of the blood samples that had been set up so perfectly had shattered all over the floor. Quincy carefully walked around broken glass and spilled fluids to make his way towards the back wall, where the only untouched shelf boasted a first aid kit on the top shelf. 

Quincy carefully walked around broken glass and spilled fluids to make his way towards the back wall, where the only untouched shelf boasted a first aid kit on the top shelf. He fumbled with it, his fingers not wanting to function. When he finally got it open he saw only a piece of paper that read in shitty handwriting, "I'm god so I don't need first aid" and a poorly drawn hand sticking up the middle finger. Brett proved to be more immature each day Quincy spent with him. Tossing the useless first aid kit box to the side, he turned around and tried to think through the fog in his brain. If he could find his wallet, he could go to the drugstore across the street from the alleyway the lab was located in and buy some band-aids, but he was afraid if he left Brett alone for too long he would choke on his own blood or vomit or something. The other option was dragging Brett's limp, bloody body with him across the street in broad daylight, which would stir up attention that was not needed now since his brother was missing.

"Shit," Quincy mumbled. His brother. Blinking hard to clear his vision, Quincy looked around the destroyed lab for any signs of Quentin. The table they had him strapped to was on its side, and so was the cart next to it. The floor was almost completely covered in shattered glass, various suspicious liquids, and a lot of blood. The blood was probably a mix of the spilled test tube samples, Quincy's cuts, Brett's mouth, and whatever Quentin had bleeding. There was an obvious line of footprints from out of the blood puddle towards the hallway that led to the exit. The prints were bigger than Quincy's feet, and he had a feeling Quentin wasn't in the building anymore.

"Brett," he called again, hoping to wake up the young scientist. His body did not move, and Quincy walked back over to him to try to wake him up, crouching next to his small frame and shaking his shoulders. When that didn't work, Quincy grew frustrated and with some hesitation, backhanded the young boy across the face.

When he did so, Brett spluttered and responded by coughing and spitting out a mouthful of blood directly into Quincy's face.

"Aagh!" He screamed, dropping Brett's shoulders and ignoring the thud of his torso onto the concrete in favor of rubbing his blood-sprayed eyes. "What the fuck, man?"

"What happened?" Brett said weakly, pushing his bangs up over his eyes and squinting around. "Where in the hell is the subject?"

"Quentin? I don't know. I think he left."

"What?" Brett said, trying to sit up. He coughed again, and spit out a tooth. "What do you mean?"

Quincy pointed at the footprints that were leading to the exit.

Brett's face went slack and he sighed. "This was not part of my plan," he growled, wiping his chin of the saliva and blood that was there and weakly getting to his feet. "We have to get him back."

"Hold the fucking phone, dude, we need to get you a first aid kit first."

"First aid is for dumbasses," Brett responded in a flat tone.

"You're a dumbass. You're bleeding. You have a huge red stain in the side of your coat which I'm assuming is from a cut. I'm going to the store to get some band-aids and hydrogen peroxide because you don't seem to have any here."

Brett didn't say anything, just made his way towards the chair that sat in front of the monitor that was hooked up to the Xbox and sitting down, clutching his side with his mouth set in a grim line. He didn't protest, so Quincy took it as a yes, going back to looking for his wallet.

"We can track down Quentin later," he said in passing as he grabbed the small brown fold off of the back desk.

"Fine," Brett responded simply, swiveling the chair towards the screen and booting up the Xbox, acting like he wasn't covered in his own and an unknown number of other people's blood. Quincy just turned and headed towards the exit.

Keeping his head down the entire way, Quincy managed to make it into the drugstore. When he got there he caught a glimpse of himself in the window as he walked in and realized his face was still covered in the blood that Brett had spit at him. He made a beeline to the bathroom and started running the sink, frantically washing off his face and watching the pink water go down the drain. When he felt like he got all of it he looked up at himself in the dingy mirror. He still had a red ring lining the outside of his face, and a huge bruise on his left cheek, but it was passable. Then, to his horror, his eyes slid to the left and he made eye contact with a young boy behind him who was staring at Quincy in the mirror, his mouth open.

Quincy didn't move for a moment, then grabbed a paper towel, rubbed it on his face, threw it in the trash can, and bolted out of the bathroom, heading for the pharmacy section to hopefully find some bandages. He flipped his collar up around his neck in an almost entirely futile effort to hide his identity should the kid from the bathroom tell someone about the man washing blood off of his face. That kind of attention right now is the last thing Quincy needed.

Locating a box of bandaids and a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide, Quincy looked around the shelf for anything else he might need, and grabbed a box of Ace Bandages as well in case Brett's side wound needed pressure. When he was sure there wasn't anything else he needed in the first aid section, he went an aisle over to grab a bottle of over-the-counter painkillers as well. He didn't need them, but he wasn't sure how well Brett would be able to handle missing teeth and part of his side. He continued to keep his head down and exchanged little more than "hello"s with the cashier before taking his small plastic bag of first aid items, his change, and heading out the door, speed-walking as soon as he was out of the vicinity of the store.

His heart was hammering in his chest as he arrived back at the lab, safe. With a grunt, he swung open the heavy metal door and made his way into the dimly lit building, his makeshift first aid kit in tow.

"Brett, I'm back," he called, walking into the main room. Brett was sitting with his back away from Quincy, watching one of the monitors on the wall. It was playing the news, and Quincy almost immediately recognized the blur of black hair on the screen as Quentin. His heart fell directly from his chest into his right foot and he felt like his stomach iced over. A chill made its way up his back and he shivered.

"This dangerous subject is on the run, and he could be anywhere from eastern Nevada to California. He should be treated as dangerous, and if you see this individual or have any clue to his whereabouts, dial 911..." The droning voice of the news anchor was drowned out by the blood roaring in Quincy's ears. The guilt he was feeling was palpable, manifesting in the form of fat drops of sweat on his forehead and palms. He sat down on the overturned operation table, holding his head and trying to make the room stop spinning.

Brett turned off the television and turned around to face Quincy. There was still dried blood around his mouth, and he was holding his side. "We have to find him," he said.

"Uh, okay," Quincy said, tearing his gaze away from the blurred image of his younger brother on the screen. "But first I think I should fix you up."

"I'm fine!" Brett declared, standing quickly but almost immediately wincing and clutching his side, leaning against the back of the chair to steady himself. "This is more important! He's the first one that survived! I have to run some tests on him! And if the cops kill him then I CAN'T!" He yelled, throwing a tantrum.

Quincy swallowed, trying to figure out what to do. "Dude, calm down," he said quietly, and Brett just huffed in response. When he felt like he was in the clear in terms of more yelling, he set down the bag of first aid items and pulling out the hydrogen peroxide and ave bandages. "Can I see that cut on your side?" He asked.

Hesitant, Brett moved his lab coat to the side and lifted up his shirt to reveal a deep and festering cut. The skin around it was pink and irritated and blood and bruising ringed the entire area. Quincy blinked hard, fighting off the chill that made its way up his spine. "Shit," he murmured.

"Ugh, can you just hurry up?" Brett growled. "I don't have time for this. Put the shit on me so we can get going."

"I'm sorry, it's just hard for me to look at stuff like that," Quincy said just above a whisper. Brett looked angry and he opened the hydrogen peroxide without another word. Realizing he forgot to buy something to apply it with and not knowing where a clean rag or towel would be, Quincy unscrewed the cap completely, peeled off the plastic disk, and poured the clear liquid directly onto Brett's side before the younger boy could react.

"MOTHERFUCKER!" Brett screamed, then added another wail mixed with a growl, ending his sharade by sucking a full breath of air through his teeth. "What the fuck?" He asked, looking up at Quincy with watery eyes.

"I'm trying to hurry," Quincy said flatly, and Brett fell silent as Quincy began to open the package that had the bandages in. "Okay, you need to stand up and take off your coat so I can wrap this around your torso."

Brett obliged, taking the oversized coat off and standing, holding his shirt up, wincing. Quincy began to wrap the bandage around, tying it off when he was done. "There. And if you need to cover up any smaller cuts on your face or whatever there are band-aids in the bag."

"Thanks, Quincy," Brett said quietly, not looking at Quincy as he put his shirt down and shouldered his coat back on. Quincy said nothing, confused by Brett's sudden change in demeanor. Instead he focused on cleaning his own cuts and bandaging them, then headed to the side of the room that had the sink at it. He had to move a broken shelf out of the way but the sink itself was untouched and he used it to finish cleaning the blood off of his face and arms. Brett spoke again after Quincy turned off the water. "We'll go tonight."

"Huh?"

"To find him. We'll leave after dark. Do you have the ability to track his location with your phone?"

Quincy shook his head.

"Hm. Well, do you know where he might have gone? You're his brother, think like he would."

"That's not really how it works," Quincy replied.

Brett groaned. "This is going to be a long manhunt."

To pass the time, the two boys cleaned up the lab. Brett was quiet the whole time, fuming that Quentin got away and that so many of his samples were destroyed and scattered all over the floor. Brett had never thought of buying anything like a mop or broom, and he refused to let Quincy go to the store again since Brett claimed it would be suspicious for him to go twice, and could also give away their location. So, Quincy picked up the bigger pieces of glass as carefully as possible and Brett used an unnecessary number of paper towels that he found in another room to clean up the various liquids on the floor. It was a hellish and slow experience, and they were barely halfway done when Brett's phone chirped an alarm.

"It's dark," Brett said. "We have to get going."


	8. CHAPTER EIGHT

Max clicked away on his keyboard, almost done with his blog post. This time it was a review for a mod for his favorite open-world fantasy game, and it was just as wonderful as he hoped it would be. His Skye chirped incessantly in the background, a group chat constantly sending messages, probably. He opened the window briefly to mute the chat responsible, and got back to his post. Even though it was late, he posted it, and after a few minutes he refreshed the page and already had multiple comments. Instead of reading them he returned to Skype, and his blowing up group chat, trying to speed-read and keep up with the onslaught of memes that were being sent by the friends he had never actually met before.

When he heard murmuring of voices outside his room he stopped typing. Previously all he could hear was the humming of the TV Skye was watching, but the low voice on the other side of the door was definitely Kyle's, then followed by Skye's. It was four in the morning, Max realized with a start when he looked at his desktop computer. Why were the other two still awake?

Half of his mind wanted to listen on his side of the door to what they were saying, because he knew that if the two of them were talking it was serious, but he decided against it. He turned back to his computer, typing away at his keyboard once again to respond to his quick-moving Skype group chat.

~ ~ ~

Skye wasn't sure what to do with himself once Kyle retreated back to his room. His stomach growled at him, probably irritated because the only thing he had put into it recently was ice cream and a packet of gushers. After his upsetting conversation with Kyle he was barely able to keep up with New Girl, and eventually went back to the Netflix menu and just stared at the screen for a while trying to process how weird the encounter had been. The older man was hardly a friend, despite being roommates. Skye did care for Kyle and liked to think of him, as well as Max, as almost like his brothers, but he knew that Kyle didn't feel the same about him and as a result he wasn't sure which actions of his were encroaching on Kyle's boundaries. Whenever Skye could tell he was having issues with Andi still being missing, or anything else, he wanted to help but was unsure if he was, or ever would be, in a position to do so. He sighed and turned the TV off, not exactly tired but not focused enough to pay attention to the TV either. He knew Max was probably awake, hell the kid was basically nocturnal, but he didn't want to bother him. He ended up staring at the ceiling for a while, scrolling through Reddit on his phone, then going back to staring at the ceiling.

Before he knew it the sun was coming up and sleep had still managed to evade him. Giving up, Skye threw off the blanket and put his robe on, heading to the bathroom to take a shower. The digital clock on the counter read 6:47. The rest of the house was quiet and Skye guessed that Max had finally gone to sleep, but he wasn't sure what had happened with Kyle.

Closing the door behind him, Skye untied the robe and hung it on the doorknob, staring at himself in the mirror and striking a few poses, flexing his arms in an attempt to make himself look more muscular than he was. When he had his fill he turned on the shower and got a clean towel out of the cabinet. When it was warm enough for him to stand he stepped inside and closed the curtain, settling into a comfortable stance and just letting the water wash over him. He took down his braid and let the water soak through his thick hair and continue to flow down his back and legs. One of Skye's favorite things to do was shower. To him, it was worth it to take a two hour shower and run the hot water out before promptly getting his ass beat by Kyle, who got stuck with ice cold water. It wasn't his fault that the water felt so good.

Light was beginning to filter into the small window above the shower when Skye finally put shampoo in his hair. Not too long later the doorknob jiggled and then there was a loud knock.

"Skye, I know you've been in there for like an hour. I have to take a shit," came Max's voice.

"Wait your turn," Skye yelled back, massaging his scalp. "I have to get ready for work,"

Max groaned in an over-dramatic manner and stomped back to his room like the cave gremlin that he was. Skye smiled to himself and rinsed out the shampoo before opening the conditioner bottle and squirting an unnecessarily large blob into his palm. He worked the goop into his long hair for about five minutes. If his two roommates knew how much he cared for his hair they would never let him hear the end of it. When the conditioner was worked in he stood still for a few minutes again, thinking about how boring work was going to be. He made a mental note to stop by the coffee shop next to the video game store so he wouldn't fall asleep behind the counter.

Finally Skye rinsed his conditioner and stepped out of the shower, drying off and staring blankly at the mirror that was fogged up completely with condensation. When he walked out of the bathroom Max was leaning against the opposite wall with his arms crossed. "About time," he grumbled, shouldering around Skye to get into the bathroom and shutting the door loudly behind him. Skye just rolled his eyes.

He made his way to the hall closet that served as his and pulled on underwear, slim sweatpants, and the T-shirt for his job. He hung his towel on the closet door and turned to head back towards the couch where his Smartwatch was charging, unhooking it and strapping it onto his wrist, checking the weather as he did so. It was warm, so he decided against his usual black jacket he usually wore over his work T-shirt.

"I'm heading out," Skye called in a random direction, hoping his housemates would hear him.

"Hold on," Kyle shouted from his bedroom. "Don't leave yet."

"What? I'm going to be late for work."

"We have other work now," Kyle stated, opening his door. He was shirtless and his skin was shiny with sweat. Skye figured he must still be shaken from whatever nightmare he had had earlier in the night.

"Really? What is it?" Skye asked.

"Not sure yet," replied Kyle, glancing at his phone again. "Max!"

"WHAT?" Came the reply from the bathroom.

"Hurry up!"

"Fuck off!"

Kyle sighed. "I'm waiting on his response. It shows that he keeps typing and then stopping. "

"Must have a lot of details," Skye guessed.

Kyle's phone pinged. "Ah," he said. "Yeah, it's a whole paragraph. Hold on." He skimmed with his eyes, his irises flitting back and forth quickly, and he let out a huff of air when he was done. "It's not for today. False alarm."

"When's it for?"

"This weekend. Big party at some important dude's house in Sacramento. We'll have to head out Friday night, probably."

"But I work this weekend," Skye complained.

"You'll have to call out, sorry."

Skye clenched his fists in anger but took a deep breath and unclenched them again. "Fine. Well, I'll be back tonight. Bye Max!"

Kyle grunted in response. Max yelled "bye!" from the bathroom.

It was definitely warm outside. Skye regretted not letting Max in the bathroom sooner, because if he had finished before Skye left he would have been able to braid his hair for him, but since he was still busy when Skye walked out the door his hair fell onto his shoulders in it's full wet glory, and he knew it was going to dry all frizzy and constantly get in his way while he was working. He would have to tie it up as soon as it dried.

The car sounded like it was dying when Skye turned the key, but the engine turned over and it started nonetheless. One of these days they were going to have to get a new car, and Skye was definitely going for a Lamborghini this time. Despite how old it was and how scary some of the sounds it made were, it got Skye to his destination, the small video game resale shop in a strip center that contained multiple larger name stores. He parked by the shop but when he got out of the car, he made his way towards the coffee shop next door, hoping he could get his cappuccino before he had to open up the store for the day without being late and getting in trouble.

There was a soft jingling sound from the bell on the door when he walked in, and the girl behind the counter looked up. "Hey, Skye, how have you been?"

"Good," Skye said, smiling at her as he walked up to the counter. She had a nametag on, this girl he ran into at the coffee shop all the time, but she had long learned his name and if he started squinting at her nametag or asked her what her name was at that point it would be beyond awkward. He cursed his bad memory, bad vision, and the small lettering on her nametag every time he saw her. "What about you?"

"Oh, you know. On that grind," she said, and they both chuckled. It was an inside joke of sorts, one each of them made occasionally. She, being the barista, made it first, of course, as a passing comment, and when Skye busted out laughing in the middle of the place, getting looks from the few people inside, the two became acquaintances almost immediately after. "You working late tonight?"

"No, just until 5. Open to close tomorrow," Skye said, sitting at the bar area as Coffee Shop Girl started on Skye's usual order without even asking.

She whistled. "They should just make you a manager instead of shift lead or whatever they call you," the blender whirred as it mixed Skye's sugary, barely-classified-as-coffee drink.

"Wouldn't that be something," he said, watching her skilled hands as they moved and created. Some days he liked to imagine her as his girlfriend, but his lifestyle kind of prevented him from having someone close who wasn't aware of his actual career. Plus, he still had no idea what her name was and it would be awkward if he asked her out and still had no clue. Unless...

"Hey, so, uh, you have a snapchat?" Skye asked as Coffee Shop Girl handed him his drink over the counter and he slid exact change plus three dollars over in return, as always.

"Why?" She asked, squinting and raising an eyebrow.

"Uh, because, to, add you, I--"

"I'm messing with you," she said with a scoff and an eye roll, pulling her phone out of her back pocket and tapping the screen a few times to open Snapchat. Her nails were painted maroon today, almost the same color as Skye's hair. "Here," she said, turning her phone around to reveal her snapcode, and her name.

Abbie Martin.

"Oh," Skye muttered, fumbling to get his phone out of his pocket with his free hand to scan her snapcode and add her. She added him back with one quick tap, turned her phone off, and put it back in her pocket, looking back up at Skye and flashing him a smile.

"Well, have a good day at work," Abbie said.

"Yeah, you too," Skye responded, turning and walking out the door, staring down at his phone screen where it read "Abbie added you back!" And displayed her avatar, which was adorned with the hearts-around-the-head filter that almost all of Skye's female Snapchat contacts used, however he couldn't make fun of them because he used it as well. The fact that she used it too made him smile.

"Well, uh," he said lamely, taking his coffee when she handed it to him and handing a ten dollar bill to her, as always, waving his hand dismissively when she tried to hand him the change, as always. "I guess I'll see you around. Have a good rest of your shift."

She smiled. "Thanks, you too."

Skye was at the game shop in only a few moments, and he rummaged in his pocket for the key to unlock the front door, the bell jingling at him as he entered, heading straight for the back so he could turn on the lights and then get the computer booted up and ready for the day. Once everything was ready and the sign was flipped to open, Skye set up the test screen with an old Animal Crossing game that he still loved, and set it to the startup screen before heading back over behind the desk where there was a chair for him to sit down and do... well, basically nothing. And, of course, Skye used his copious amounts of free time to do only the most important things, like filming TikTok videos.

Max and Kyle called his videos "cringey" and "not entertaining" but his fans said otherwise and Skye was way more concerned with their opinions anyways. Sometimes he even went live while he was working because they had that few customers come into the store every day. Good for business? No. Was he ever going to get a raise? Definitely not. Did he care? Not particularly.

He did a few tasks beforehand, though, like today he was marking down some of the older games they had in stock before re-shelving them in the used area of the store. The best part of his job was that he spent a lot of time by himself, and that's the way he liked it. He was just shelving the last couple of games when the doorbell rang.

"Hi, welcome to Game Place," Skye called, pulling on his lanyard that displayed his badge and picture as he made his way back up front. A girl had come into the shop. She was dark-skinned, with a thick head of black curls pulled into a loose ponytail. She looked around in awe, not even registering Skye until he was right in front of her. "Can I help you find something?" he asked.

"Oh," the girl said, her brown eyes moving to meet his. "Yeah. I'm looking for Minecraft for the PS3."

"You still have a PS3?" Skye blurted before he could help himself.

The girl rolled her eyes in response. "Uh, yeah, your point?"

"Nothing, nothing, just wondering why you haven't upgraded yet."

"I have a thing for older systems. It's the newest one I own, and the only one that can play Minecraft," she said.

Skye made an 'o' shape with his mouth, and without saying anything else motioned with his hand for her to follow him towards the wall of PS3 games. He thumbed through the M's for a second before handing her a blank case, the only indication of what was inside being the white sticker on the front and side that said "MINECRAFT" written in sharpie, in Skye's less-than-perfect handwriting. The blank case was adorned by an orange sticker above the label that read "19.99".

"Why is it $20? Isn't this the cube game?" The girl asked, scrunching her nose and turning the case around in her hands. "It isn't even in the original case."

"Well, no, it's used. This is a used game store, and the blank case versions are cheaper than the new versions. Besides, we don't even carry Minecraft for PS3 new," he said, crossing his arms and shrugging, resisting the urge to say so you gonna buy it or not? So he could hurry her along and get back to the more important things on his agenda for the day.

The girl let out a deep sigh, staring at the game in her hands with unbridled disgust on her face. "Okay, I guess this is fine."

Skye said nothing, but instead turned and headed towards the register. The girl lagged behind for a moment, but by the time he got behind the counter and was waking up the computer she had walked up and set the game on the counter, rifling around in her purse for money. What happened next was not something Skye was expecting. From her small wallet, the dark-haired girl pulled out a literal stack of 100 dollar bills. The first thing that came out of his mouth was, "I can't break a bill that big."

She looked at him with that same disgust she eyed the blank case with earlier. "I'm looking for a twenty," she said flatly. She pulled one out of the stack, put the rest neatly back into her wallet, then purse, and handed Skye the twenty dollar bill. She swiped the game off the counter and walked out the door without so much as a goodbye. Skye took the penny that was to be her change out of the register and put it in the tip jar, the lone coin hitting the bottom with a tinny clink.

"Have a nice day," he called after her as she opened the door and the bell rang. She didn't say anything back, or even turn around, and Skye rolled his eyes as he tore the receipt out of the machine and threw it in the trash can, watching her retreating form out the window. She headed directly to the coffee shop that Abbie worked at, and disappeared inside. Skye finally tore his gaze away from the window and turned on his phone. He had been feeling uninspired for the past few days and hadn't posted a video, but that did not stop the hundreds of notifications from pouring in. He skipped scrolling through them and just tapped on his most recent video, muting his phone and opening the comment section. This was one of his favorite things to do; scroll through and reply to comments on his videos. Some people were even funnier than he was.

His most recent video was simple - him doing the Renegade dance for the fifth time on his page in recent months. In the back of his head Skye knew it was cringey, but he loved it. Most of his fans did too.

You're so cute, commented slinkytree33. I know, Skye thought to himself.

Gay, proposed moisttoes. Yeah, okay.

Skye hit the reply button: no u. There we go.

He continued like this for about twenty minutes. The comments were about one third calling him gay, which he was used to. People have thought he was strange his whole life, starting in high school when he began wearing eyeliner and growing his hair out. The comments didn't bother him. Instead he focused on the other two-thirds, which were either random comments that had nothing to do with his video, or compliments. Those were his favorites, and every time Max saw him doing exactly what he was doing now, he would make sure to tell him that looking through them was only inflating his ego more than it already was. Oh well, he thought.

His scrolling was stopped short when the doorbell jingled, announcing his second customer of the day. He turned off his phone and set it on the counter, announcing "Hi, welcome," to the man and his kids that had walked in the store. The two boys ignored him and ran straight for the games on the far wall, their dad nodding curtly at Skye before trailing after them. He fiddled with a pen that was sitting on the counter, waiting for them to bring their purchases up. The voices of the two boys chattered through the air, though they were too far away for Skye to actually hear what they were saying. Eventually they came back up to the counter, the taller of the two boys slapping a case down. Skye smiled at him and picked it up to scan it. It was a Mario game, which was not surprising to him at all. "That'll be $34.99," Skye told their father, and he handed Skye a credit card wordlessly. "Would you like to sign up for our membership?" He asked, but the man just shook his head. He clicked the credit card icon and swiped it, handing it back while the receipt printed out. The man signed the receipt with the pen that Skye handed him while the two boys fought over who got to hold the game on the way home, each with one hand on it as they made their way toward the door. Their father slid the receipt and pen back, muttered a "thank you", and followed after his kids, telling them to behave and take turns holding it.

When they left the store was quiet once again, and Skye made his way towards the back wall to fix anything they had messed up. There were a few misplaced cases and one on the floor, so he straightened them carefully. He might not seem like it, but he did really care for the store and how it looked. During the occasional visit from the owner of the store, Martin, he was told that he was the only employee who "gave a shit about his livelihood," hence why Skye worked mornings by himself. There were a few other employees, most of them teenagers, who worked nights and weekends. Skye was nice to them, and they were nice back, but he didn't consider any of them his friends, really. Even when the shifts overlapped and he worked with one of his coworkers for a few hours, they didn't talk much. He suspected they thought he was annoying, but it didn't bother him too much.

Having already checked the schedule, Skye knew that he was working with his coworker James for a few hours. James was a senior in high school, but he got out of school earlier than the release time for the younger students. Skye was jealous about it, because there was no such thing as a "work program" at his high school. Alas, James got out of school an hour and a half early, and he came to work at 2. Skye didn't get off until 5, which meant they would both be sitting bored behind the counter.

The morning hours passed quickly, and there was only one more customer, a lanky, greasy-haired teenage boy selling a bunch of old PlayStation 2 games. Skye calculated how much he should give the kid for them using Martin's chart, and he even bumped it up a few dollars, but the kid was adamant that some of the games were rare. A quick google search proved him wrong, and he had picked up his stack of games and stormed out the door. "Have a nice day!" Skye had called after him. Soon enough, two o'clock came around, and James walked through the door exactly on the dot.

"Hey, Skye," he said in a chipper voice, tapping on the POS screen to clock in. "How'zit going?"

"Good," Skye answered, lowering his phone to look at his coworker. "How's school?"

"Boring," James answered, pulling up the second chair and flopping down, putting his backpack on the floor and pulling out his phone immediately. This signaled the end of their conversation, which was about the same every time they saw each other, so Skye went back to looking through his comments.

"You use TikTok?" Skye asked without thinking. What the hell am I doing?

"Hm? Oh, I mean, I have the app, but I don't make videos myself," James replied, not looking up from his phone.

I wonder if he knows about me, Skye thought to himself. It was a weird feeling for him -- part embarrassment that he had such a "cringe-worthy" hobby, but the other half of him was kind of proud that he had amassed such a following, and he liked to think that he was pretty funny as well.

James did not give any indication that he knew what Skye was getting at, keeping his face buried in his phone. Skye did not like the atmosphere created by his disinterest, and instead of trying to continue it he stood up and wandered around the store, looking for something to do. All he had to do was find something to occupy the next three hours of his time that wouldn't get him fired or make James think he was weird. Simple.

He ended up reorganizing the used PS3 games, first alphabetically by company name and then by title of the games themselves. The display was a lot more coherent than it was before he started and it made him feel better that he actually did something productive. When he could not possibly make it look any better he headed back to the front and sat back down in his chair. James had pulled out his homework and laid it out on the counter in front of him, his head down and pencil moving across the page quickly. Skye sat down and plugged his phone into the charger he kept plugged in under the counter, leaning back and checking his notifications yet again. He had barely responded to two comments when his phone pinged.

Snapchat / Abbie Martin

Skye stared at the notification for a second, frozen. It went away before he clicked on it and it snapped him out of his reverie. He opened the snapchat app, a weird feeling in his gut.

When he opened her message it was just a picture of her in her car, a big grin on her face with the caption "finally off!" he smiled to himself and tapped once on his screen to dismiss the picture before hitting the reply button and taking a picture of just his eyes and forehead to send back. "Nice" he added as a caption before sending it.

He stared at her name on his screen until she opened it. When she did his heart rate picked up and he kept waiting, but no response came through. Why wasn't she responding? Maybe he wasn't being conversational enough. He huffed. How is she supposed to respond to "nice"? He thought to himself. Giving up, he turned off his phone and put his head in his hands, wondering why he was so upset about this in the first place. While his phone was charging on the counter he stared at the wall, thinking to himself that maybe he should have brought a book to read. He almost immediately thought to himself that he doesn't read, so it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

He just wished that he was spending this shift alone so he could watch TikToks in peace. He had no idea how his coworkers would react if they found out he used it, let alone was famous on the platform. Instead he started grabbing random blank pieces of paper and folding them into paper cranes of varying sizes, bored out of his mind and wishing Abbie was here.

His phone pinged as if on cue.  
Snapchat / Abbie Martin is typing...

Snapchat / Abbie Martin

Holy shit.

Skye grabbed his phone and opened the message a lot faster than he should have. The message read, what time do u get off again?

5, Skye sent back simply. Her avatar popped up on the screen with a little thought bubble, and then a second message came through.

Sorry if this is weird but do u wanna like, hang out or something?

Oh wow, that was not what he was expecting at all. And it excited him a lot. He was used to female attention over the internet but nothing like this, and it made him feel weird. He took a deep breath and typed back, yea, where at?

Her avatar popped up thinking again, then it just stayed there looking at Skye for a moment before disappearing. No message. What?

"Hey man, you good?" James suddenly asked, making Skye jump a little.

"What?"

"You look either mad or constipated and I can't tell which," James said, smirking.

"It's nothing," Skye said shortly, not wanting to explain his business to this kid. "Do your homework."

James rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling. He went back to his homework, his pencil making those scratching noises again.

When five o'clock came around, Abbie still had not texted Skye back and he was extremely confused. He left Game Place and got into the shitbox he and the other two boys called a car, tying his long red hair back into a ponytail and rolling the windows down to reduce the stuffiness inside. He cranked up the radio station, which was playing oldie's rock, and put the car in drive, cringing as it ground against itself to move. He kept checking his phone as he was driving, but Abbie still hadn't texted him back. Now in a sour mood, Skye shifted into first gear angrily as the light in front of him turned green, the car lurching forward in response. It wasn't until he made it home that his phone pinged at him again. It was another text from Abbie that read sorry, something came up but i def want to hang in the future! Sorry again :(. Skye stared at his phone screen for a second then turned if off, not even able to form a response that wouldn't sound rude. He turned off the car and swung the keys around on his finger as he made his way back up to the house.


	9. CHAPTER NINE

There was nothing around for miles and the only sounds were the humdrum noise of the tires on the pavement, the wind whistling by the partially cracked windows, and a song Crae couldn’t make out coming in over the radio, which was mostly static in a remote area like this. It was a wonder there was any music at all. Being on transport wasn’t the worst thing to be assigned to, and it made it better that Shauna was able to come with him. Crae suspected that Tiler knew what was up between them and this was her indirect way of trying to be nice. Or it was a total coincidence. Either way he was happy with it. 

Most of the time when they went on drives like this they did not speak. Shauna was not a particularly vocal person and neither was Crae so they enjoyed a comfortable silence, the radio offering a mixed soundtrack of whatever station they could catch or static depending on where they were driving that particular time. There wasn’t much to look at out here besides desert and shrubs. They had passed the border into Nevada but the scenery had remained exactly the same. The large truck that they were driving left a cloud of smoke in their wake, and in front of them the sun watched them on their journey, silent but scorching.

He wished life could always be this simple. Well, as simple as things could get when you were transporting either weapons or drugs. Crae had his money on drugs. He wasn’t one of the people involved in the direct dealing of them, but he did end up with the transport job sometimes so he didn’t think of himself as any better than the men he was going to deliver it to. All he could hope was that the transfer would be quick and civil. He had no idea how many people were involved total, or who would be meeting them at any given dropoff. It was situations like this that reminded Crae what kind of mess he had gotten himself into.

“What’s on your mind?” Shauna asked, snapping Crae’s attention out of his own head.

“Hmm?” He responded, glancing from the straight road that stretched seemingly forever in front of them to briefly look at her. The sun was setting and her skin glowed in this light, turning a caramel color. 

“You’re zoned out, and gripping the steering wheel so tight it looks like it hurts.”

“Oh,” Crae said, looking at the strained skin on his knuckles and loosening his grip a little bit, stretching his hands for a moment to regain feeling. “Just… I don’t know, stuff.”  
“Stuff?”

“Yeah, like, wondering what events in my life got me into this situation. Was it a specific one or two or has every decision in my life lead up to this moment, you know? Was me choosing orange juice over apple juice at lunch on that one day in fifth grade what got me here?”

“Okay, you lost me,” Shauna sighed, propping her feet up on the dashboard. She was wearing an unflattering uniform, which was supposed to match whatever truck they were driving and make them more inconspicuous. Her boots made a clunking sound as they settled. “You shouldn’t be getting all existential while you’re driving.”

“You’re welcome to drive,” Crae offered with a smirk, knowing she hated driving.

“Nah, I’ll let you go for another hour or so,” she replied, and they fell into silence once more.

Crae tried to focus on the road ahead of him but it was difficult when the landscape had not changed for hours and his mind was trying to give him things to think about to entertain him. The issue is that when his mind did that it usually went to dark or existential things, a habit he hadn’t been able to break since his dad died.

“Babe,” Shauna said once again a few minutes later. The pet name threw him for a loop; she never called him things like that. 

“Huh?” he said.

“You’re doing it again. Let me drive.” 

Crae looked down at his knuckles once more, and the blood had left them again. He flexed them as he slowly pressed on the brake, the truck screeching to a slow halt. When he got out and stretched he tried to soak up as much of the orange setting sun as he could, looking out over the desert. He heard the crunching of gravel as Shauna walked around the truck to join him.

“It’s gorgeous out here,” he breathed.

“Yeah,” Shauna agreed, reaching a hand out and lightly tracing her fingers from Crae’s shoulder to his elbow before breaking the contact. “I think I’d like to move out here, or somewhere like it someday. Nothing around for miles except me and whatever animals I decide to have on my giant farm.”

Crae chuckled and turned to look at her. She lifted one eyebrow.

“Something funny about that?”

“No, I just didn’t pin you as the farm type,” he said, smiling.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me yet,” Shauna replied.

“Yet?”

She grinned back at him and leaned forward, planting a short kiss on his lips before turning on her heel and hopping into the driver’s seat of the car.

~ 

It was dark when they had finished their task and were preparing to make the long journey back. Luckily, Crae thought, the truck was empty now and would be much lighter, and therefore they would get home faster. He and Shauna walked side by side down the aisle of the gas station, looking for snacks to tide them over until morning when restaurants would open again and allow them to obtain a proper meal. After grabbing a few less than healthy food items and a few drinks, they made their way back to the front of the empty store and purchased their items from the sleepy attendant. Crae glanced at his phone while he was waiting on the woman to scan all of their items. It was 3 AM. Maybe they had better sleep for the night.

“Are you tired?” He asked Shauna as they made their way across the parking lot back towards the big truck parked on the edge. 

“Not really,” She responded without looking at him, reaching into the plastic bag and pulling out a package of chocolates.

“I was thinking we should sleep for the night.”

“Why don’t we just take turns sleeping while the other drives?”

“Well…” Crae said, trailing off as he stopped in his tracks just a few feet from the truck. “I was just making a suggestion. Seeing as the cargo trailer is empty and all. Plus we have those blankets and pillows upfront we can use to make it more comfortable.” His heartbeat was rising, and when Shauna turned to look at him he was surprised at how much her pupils dilated when she looked at him. His breath caught in his throat and her lips spread across her face in a sly smile.

“Ah… I see,” was all she said.

~ 

“So, how much land did you have in mind for your farm?” Crae asked.

Shauna shuffled, getting more comfortable as she laid on his chest. Crae’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he looked around at the blank walls around him. It was getting stuffy in the container they were in and he thought about how he would need to open the back of the truck soon so they could get some fresh air. 

“Uhm, I don’t really know. A lot, I guess.” Shauna responded in a quiet voice. She traced her fingers in circles on his chest, and he raked his fingers through her hair. It was comforting, and domestic, and it made his heart squeeze.

“All that land to yourself?” He asked.

“And my animals.”

“What kind of animals?”

“I don’t know,” she mused sitting up, the blanket falling off of her shoulders like water and exposing her skin, though he couldn’t make much of the details out in this dim light. She felt around for her T-shirt and pulled it back on, leaving her bra discarded next to where her shirt had been before. “Whatever kind of animals you would find on a farm. Cows, chickens, maybe some horses so I can ride around. Ooh, maybe even goats!”

Crae laughed. “Goats? Those motherfuckers are scary.”

“Scary how?”

“Have you seen their eyes? They’re freaky! Like demons or something.”

“Don’t judge my goats!”

“You don’t actually own any goats yet.”

“Don’t judge my future goats!”

Crae just laughed and Shauna laid back down, kissing him long and slow. When she pulled away there was an unspoken tension in the air, the beginnings of a confession dying on Crae’s lips as she turned over away from him. He wondered if they could just stay like this for the rest of the night, or stay on the road in general for even longer, but he knew that Tiler would be expecting them back, and another team would need the truck soon. He sighed, unsure of himself with what to say next, disappointed in himself for not saying any of what he wanted to deep down.

“We should get going,” he said instead.

“Already?” Shauna asked, lifting her head back up.

“Yeah. I just don’t really want to sleep in the empty back of the truck. Kinda suspicious.”

“Hmm. I guess you have a point. You’re driving, though.”

“Fine by me.”

~

The sun was lazily making its way over the hills in the distance, bathing the sky in a soft pinkish orange glow. Shauna was still asleep next to him, and despite how tired Crae was, he didn’t want to disrupt her peaceful slumber. The radio crackled static, and Crae could feel highway hypnosis pulling at his already heavy eyelids. He knew he needed to sleep; he was probably getting close to twenty hours without so much as a snooze, and it was starting to fog his judgement. He glanced over at his traveling companion once more and debated waking her up, then turned his attention back to the road again instead. Not even a full minute later he jolted, not even realizing that his eyes had fallen shut. His gaze was starting to cloud again when a loud bang rippled throughout the silence of the desert.

The bang was followed by a second, louder bang, and then Crae found it incredibly difficult to control the truck. A glance in the rearview mirror revealed that the back left tire had blown, and the rim was grinding and screeching on the road. Crae’s heartbeat quickened, fearing there might have been more to it than just a tire blowing. 

A second bang, quieter than the blown tire and reminiscent of the first one, echoed out again, then a whizzing noise and a loud clang against the side of the truck. It was exactly as Crae had feared. Someone was shooting at them.

Shauna, amazingly, was still asleep. Crae was now very much awake, and weighing whether it was better to keep going and get away from whoever the hell was shooting at them, possibly damaging the rim of the truck beyond repair, and definitely drawing attention to them wherever they stopped to fix it; or stopping, and facing the unknown assailant with nothing but the handgun he had on his belt. He was running out of time to decide, if the black sedan that appeared on the road just within his sight told him anything. He couldn’t make out anything besides the shape of it, but it had to be where the bullets were coming from, and it was gaining on them fast.

Crae pressed his foot into the pedal, forcing it to touch the floor as the truck groaned and the back left rim screeched on the asphalt. The speedometer climbed to eighty, ninety, and then the governor kicked in and the truck kicked back, forcing Crae to sit at ninety miles an hour. A quick look in the mirror showed that the sedan was gaining on them easily. Frantic, Crae looked over at Shauna, who was still unconscious.

“Shauna!” Crae screamed. She didn’t move. He moved his right hand from the steering wheel to her shoulder and shook her vigorously. “SHAUNA!”

Why isn’t she waking up? Crae wondered, panicking, his breaths coming out shorter as the black car pulled ever closer. He could see the gunman hanging outside the passenger window now, a semi-automatic shotgun pointed at them. Just as the thought that the two of them might die crossed his mind, another bang rang out, louder this time, closer. The back right tire blew with a follow-up bang, and Crae lost control of the wheel as the truck began to spin. 

The ride turned bumpy as the truck careened into the desert sand, hitting the top of a slope and beginning to roll down into the shrubs below. Metal crunched deafeningly around them. “Shauna!” Crae screamed again, squeezing his eyes shut after catching a glimpse of her limply lulling her head up and down with the motion of the rolling vehicle.  
When the truck finally stopped rolling, it was on its side, Shauna’s door facing the dirt. She was leaning against the door, her eyes still shut, not moving. There was no way she could have slept through that. Was she dead? Did she get knocked out during the roll? Did she have a concussion?

Crae struggled against his now locked seatbelt to reach out to her. The windshield and the window next to him had shattered, and he could see large shards of glass embedded in his arm as he stretched it out to her. He felt blood running down the side of his face and dampening his hair as she shook her shoulder once more.

“Shauna, please,” he said, his voice cracking. He made a move to unlock his seatbelt so he could get them out of the truck, but the sound of a shotgun cocking made him freeze.

He turned his head to look straight down the barrel, the glare of the sun preventing him from seeing the man on the other side of the gun’s face. His flight response took over and he made a move to shield himself, the seatbelt unlocking simultaneously as he lost his balance and fell toward Shauna’s limp body.

“No!” He screamed, covering his face.

“Crae!” Something forcibly grabbed his wrist, and suddenly there was sunlight streaming into Crae’s face. The hand on his wrist was Shauna’s, and when he looked up at her she seemed just as concerned as she did pissed off.

“Dude, you started screaming in your sleep and nearly caused us to get in a wreck. Are you good?”

Crae tried to steady his breathing. His mouth felt as dry as the desert outside. He took in his surroundings. It was midday, the sun not visible through the window. They had come to a stop on the side of the road, and Shauna was in the driver’s seat. He looked in the side mirror outside his window and to his confusion there wasn’t a black sedan in sight.

“What… but I was.. You..” Crae couldn’t get the words out. His throat was just as dry as his mouth, and he reached for the water sitting in the cupholder, downing the entire thing as Shauna continued to stare at him.

“Bad dream?” She said when he finished the water bottle. 

“Yeah… sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t even remember falling asleep.”

Shauna chuckled, putting the car back in drive once she could see that Crae was alright. “I know. I woke up at about seven this morning and you were so tired you couldn’t keep your eyes open, so I made you switch with me and you barely even closed the passenger door before you were out.”

Crae chuckled slightly. “Makes sense. I’m sorry for scaring you.”

Shauna shook her head, reaching her hand out to grab his. “Don’t worry about it. You’re safe now.”


End file.
